Narrative
Fiction works under 25 minutes from emerging and established directors. The traditional spine of the festival.
Submission rules →For one week each May, Oslo becomes a lantern of cinema — a meeting place for filmmakers, audiences and ideas told in fifteen minutes or less. Our sixth edition gathers the strongest international voices in short-form storytelling.
Six years ago we opened a single weekend of short cinema in a small auditorium beside the Akerselva river. Two hundred and twelve people came; we had planned for forty. Something had been quietly waiting in this city — a hunger to take the short film as seriously as the world takes the feature.
This edition is the result of that hunger. Two thousand one hundred and seventeen films arrived from seventy-four countries. Three months of viewing rooms, two days of jury deliberation, and one long Tuesday night will decide the honors you will read about tomorrow.
Our programme this year is bound, very loosely, by a single thread: the idea of memory as landscape — films that treat what we remember as a place we can return to, the way a hiker returns to a mountain. From a salt field in Vietnam to a closed mine in Sweden, from a paper studio in Beijing to a corridor of a small Irish hotel, these are films that take their time, and reward yours.
Welcome. Please be late for nothing.
— Lars Berg-Hansen, Head of Programme
Fifteen jury awards and one audience award have been presented this evening at Oslo Konserthus, closing the sixth edition of the festival.
The full list — including the Grand Prix citation, the four programme honors and every craft award — is published in the OSFF Winners archive. Press kit, photography and the official press release are available from the Press Room.
Our competition runs across four formal strands and the Student Short. Films are watched, in full, by a rotating team of selectors before our international jury convenes in the first week of May.
Every selected work receives a screening fee. Every winning work receives a cash prize.
Fiction works under 25 minutes from emerging and established directors. The traditional spine of the festival.
Submission rules →Non-fiction storytelling that bears witness — from intimate portraits to investigative reportage.
Submission rules →Hand-drawn, digital, stop-motion and hybrid works that push the language of the moving image.
Submission rules →Essay films, structural cinema and form-bending works that redraw the map of the medium.
Submission rules →An abridged schedule of the public-facing programme. The full daily booklet is available at the festival desk inside the Konserthus foyer, and online at programme.oslosff.com.
After the Ceremony, See the Winners →A small selection of reviews and notes from our partner publications, including Sight & Sound, Cahiers du Cinéma, Variety, Aftenposten and the Nordic film press.
Press Room →"Oslo has, almost without anyone noticing, become the most serious short film festival in the Nordics — possibly in Europe."
Sight & Sound · London · April 2026
"A festival that programmes like a magazine — quietly, with an eye on the long view, and with the patience to wait for the right film."
Cahiers du Cinéma · Paris · May 2026
"For a country of five million, Norway is having a remarkable festival decade. OSFF is the proof."
Variety · Los Angeles · March 2026
"Den unge filmens viktigste norske scene."
Aftenposten · Oslo · May 2025
("The most important Norwegian stage for young cinema.")
Glimpses of past editions — screenings, Q&A nights, the industry lounge, and the long Nordic dusk that lingers outside the theatre until almost midnight.
OSFF is an independent festival, funded by a coalition of public bodies, cultural foundations, broadcast partners and a quiet circle of private patrons.
We are always looking for volunteers, translators, projectionists and student programmers. Spend a week with a festival that treats every short film as a feature.
OSFF · Oslo
News from the office, curated short film recommendations, calls for submission and the occasional long-read from our programmers. No advertising. No fluff.