PLAY - Festival Internacional de Cinema Infantil e Juvenil de Lisboa (13)

Festival start: 21 February 2026      Festival end: 01 March 2026

PLAY is the first Portuguese film festival, exclusively dedicated to children and teenagers, determined to promote the access to culture for a younger audience through Cinema and screening films for audiences aged between 1 and 16 years old.

Cash Prizes: 800€

Prizes:

PUBLIC AWARD elected by the festival audience (non-monetary).

JUNIOR JURY AWARD elected by a jury made up of children.

ECFA AWARD elected by a jury made up of professional members of the Ecfa association. The winner will be on the shortlist for the best European short film for children.

PLAY AWARD Best Short Film Real Image and Animation, which consists of a cash prize worth €800 each and will be elected by a jury made up of professionals from the Cinema and Culture industry.

Eligibility

Submission to the Festival is open to feature films, creative documentaries, experimental films, ​student films, short films and innovative visual productions for digital media completed after January 1, 2023.

1.4 Entries
Entries for the 2026 PLAY Lisbon’s International Kids Film Festival are open from April 1st ​to October 1st of 2025, the latter being the deadline for filing the required entry.

Films should be submitted for evaluation by the selection committee by providing an online screener.

2. Competitions

2.1 PLAY Audience Award for Best Short Film

All short-movies are eligible for the audience competition. There will be four winners: Best Short Movie for the ages 3-5 , for the ages of 6-9, for the ages 10 to 13 and for the ages of +13 elected by the audience vote.

The Festival Program Committee will make the selection of competing films.

This is a non-monetary award, and the three winners will each receive a diploma.

2.2 PLAY International Award for Best Short Film

The Festival Program Committee will make the selection of competing films. An International Jury composed of professionals of the film industry and culture, designated by the Festival's organizing committee, will award these two prizes.

The jury can decide not to award a prize if it feels that there are no worthy films. Decisions of the Jury are final.

If any jury member is unable to perform their duties, the Festival reserves the right to nominate one or more additional jury members. The two pecuniary prizes are 800 euros each.

The announcement of the prize-winners is made at the festival, on the closing night. Any sums of money the Festival offers will be transferred to the bank account of the beneficiary at the latest by june 30, 2026.

3. Promotional materials
Participants are asked to make available all requested publicity materials for promotion.

4. Submission Guidelines and Materials

4.1 Entry Form
The film should be entered through the adherent Sites and online form.

4.2 Preview Copy
In order to complete the submission, the applicant is requested to send a link for online screening.

4.3 Selection
Festival programmers select and invite all films presented at the festival.

Films selected for the PLAY Lisbon International Kids Film Festival will be announced by January 31st, 2026 on our website. Filmmakers selected to participate will be notified prior to this date.

5. Selected films

5.1 The list of selected films will be released officially by February 6th 2026.

5.2 Selected films must have their exhibition clearly authorized according to the model, which will be released. A pdf copy must be sent, with the signature of the detainer of the exhibition rights, to the mail producao@playfest.pt

5.3 Catalogue materials
All contact persons of selected films will receive a request for catalogue materials upon confirming participation in the festival.

5.4 Publicity Materials
The publicity contacts of the films participating in the Festival will receive a request from the Press office to send publicity materials. These materials will be used in Festival publications and for distribution to the press.

5.4.1 Excerpts
After official selection of a film, the Festival is qualified to use excerpts from the film, with a maximum of 1 minute, in the case of films with 1 min last, a 10% maximum. In the event that excerpts are not available, and it’s being understood that under no circumstances the entire print might be lent out.

5.4.2 Promotion
For promotion of the entire selection and of each selected film, the Festival website is allowed to use any photo or digital film clip (less than 3' duration).

5.5 Programming
General scheduling and the timetabling of screenings are entirely at the discretion of the Festival Management.

5.6 Subtitling
When not in Portuguese, selected films, could be screened in their original version with subtitles or dubbed in Portuguese. It is imperative, before sending the print, to send the English dialogue list (including time codes) .
Any cost made for translation, dubbing or producing time coded files or DVD’s needed will be covered by the PLAY Festival.

5.7 Formats
Film formats and video systems that can be presented during the Festival are: 35mm, DCP, Video Files (mov, h264 etc) preferably.

Presentation of other formats and video systems or delivery through any other type of disk, formatting or licenses requires the authorization of the Festival. Without this authorization the Festival retains the right to exclude a film from the program.

6. Shipping of Prints and Videos of Selected Films

6.1. The copies of the selected films must be at the Festival address no later than January 10, 2026.

6.2. Availability of screening copy
Unless authorized by the Festival, prints/videos must be made available for the whole festival period. A DCP can be returned upon request right after ingesting and testing.

In case you send a DCP take into account that the Festival needs time for testing and ingesting, and must therefore be available. In case an encrypted DCP will be delivered, the DKDM time-window should be valid from 30 January 2026 till the 10 of March 2026.

6.2.2 Shipment
The Festival will pay for the transportation charges, unless the shipment should be to another Film festival, in this case they should take care of the transport.