Southampton Film Week

Southampton Film Week returns from 13 to 22 November 2026, running across venues all over the city. It's the annual celebration of film and filmmakers from around the globe, put on by the local arts organisation City Eye, and this year marks its eighteenth edition.

At the heart of the week is SFW: Shorts, the festival's own short film competition. It takes in films up to 15 minutes long across several categories, and there's a special rate for regional filmmakers, so if you've got something you've been working on, this is the one to enter. The programme usually mixes features and shorts, filmmaker discussions, live music and film, archive screenings and networking, and it all wraps up with the Southampton Film Week Film Quiz, which has become a bit of a local legend in its own right.

There's more to it than just the ten days in November, too. City Eye runs a Film Network that meets on the second Tuesday of each month, bringing filmmakers together from across the Solent region. There's also a 48-hour film challenge run by DVMISSION. And alongside the main festival, a Youth Film Festival led by young people has grown, with support from partners like the BFI through Film Hub South West.

So, if you're into cinema, whether you make it or just like watching it, there's plenty to get stuck into. The main event runs from 13 to 22 November at venues across Southampton.