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Ohio Shorts 2025 Call for Entries

Entries due March 3, 2025

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Showcasing Ohio’s rich community of moving-image makers, our annual Ohio Shorts festival is back for its 29th year—submissions open on this page January 1!

Known for presenting an eclectic mix of short films—from documentary, animation, and dramatic narrative to anything in between—Ohio Shorts is back again! This year’s edition will be curated by Ohio-based multidisciplinary artist and past Ohio Shorts filmmaker Dejiah Archie-Davis.

We welcome and encourage submissions from all ages and experience levels. Works that are included in the program will receive a $50 screening fee and be eligible for the $500 Jury Award, selected by Archie-Davis, and the $300 Audience Choice Award, determined by audience voting.

The deadline for entries is 11:59 PM on Monday, March 3, 2025.

  • One entry per person is permitted.
  • All works must be submitted by Vimeo or YouTube URL using the entry form.
  • Works can be as short as 30 seconds but no longer than 20 minutes and must be produced in Ohio within the last 18 months (between June 2023 and January 2025). 

The full program will be announced in early April. An in-person screening will be held on Saturday, April 19, 2025. Check back for more details.

For questions about Ohio Shorts 2025, please email ohioshorts@wexarts.org

A red camper is visible in a barren landscape through the tops of soda cans strung on strings.

Ohio Shorts 2024 $500 Jury Award winner Exit Danish Flats (Natasha Woods, 2024).

A man with a beard and a top knot holds a flower to his nose. He is wearing boxing gloves.

Ohio Shorts 2024 $300 Audience Choice Award winner Unboxing Brad: The Making of Boxing Day (The Film) (Jason Johns and Jason Hazel, 2022).

More about the curator

Dejiah Archie-Davis chevron-down chevron-up

Dejiah Archie-Davis (b. 1997, Cleveland, Ohio) is a multidisciplinary artist who explores the intersections between self-identity and history by utilizing mixed media, photography, and video. Archie-Davis narrates experiences from observational and recollective memory. She engages her subjects with the exploration of spiritual and divergent connections, while emphasizing the influence of environmental transformation. While exploring with color and patterns, she creates space and depth within her pieces. Images are scaled and textured, while her collages are remixed into repetitive moments that build upon themselves until the original source is broken down or barely recognizable. By using this technique in her work, Archie-Davis creates dialogue between the familiarity and uncertainty of Black sociality and futurisms. 

Artist statement:
​While examining history and experimenting through collage, I find ways to deconstruct the past, to define existential cycles through repetitive images and rearrangement. Through my artwork, I build a connection between visibility and absence, while layering profiles of color or patterns that are often challenged with a multimedia technique. By reconceiving my concept of memory and sensory, I am able to create a distortion between space and time.

FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
National Endowment for the Arts
Ohio Humanities

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Rohauer Collection Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
Greater Columbus Arts Council
The Wexner Family
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Mellon Foundation
Every Page Foundation
Ohio Arts Council, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts
CampusParc
Nationwide Foundation
Lois S. and H. Roy Chope Fund of The Columbus Foundation
Ohio State’s Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme
The Columbus Foundation
Axium Packaging

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Ohio State Energy Partners
Ohio History Fund/Ohio History Connection
David Crane and Elizabeth Dang
Melissa Gilliam and William Grobman
Rebecca Perry Damsen and Ben Towle

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Ohio Shorts 2025 Call for Entries