On 1 March, the registration period was closed for this year’s 20th edition of the BuSho Film Festival. As usual, we received almost a thousand entries. In addition to the Filmfreeway platform, this year we made a trial run in the East and accepted entries via a Chinese platform as well.

Let’s have a look at the numbers and statistics. The majority of submissions are fiction films, along with approximately 70 experimental films and 130 animations.

All continents are represented, and we received submissions from 64 countries. Not surprisingly, the Spanish sent the largest number of works, 97, as they continued to coordinate distribution in well-organized regional units. We were delighted to count 84 Hungarian entries.  On the 3rd place of the podium is Germany with 71 submitted short films. In the top 10, Iran and China were notable, while the others, in the usual order, were French, British, Italian, Russian, American, and Canadian short films. Among our neighbors, Austria sent the most films. Finnalnd submitted the most films from Scandinavia, and all the previously awarded Visegrad countries were also represented. Of course, this year there are plenty of films from the exotic ’Not Specified’ or ’Other’ countries, but the jury will be able to pick and choose from films submitted from all over the world. Some of them are Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Haiti, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines and Singapore.

The pre-jury started processing the films at the beginning of the year, and the official competition program will be announced on 1 May, after which all selected filmmakers will have 1 month to send in their screening copies.

A detailed screening program will then be finalized by 15 June, after which there will be another month for accreditation for in-person participation.

But we’ll come with more information when the time comes.