Submit Your Film by our March 27 Deadline!

Plus: immerse yourself at a climate/XR incubator at MIT, check out the ReelAbilities Film Festival, and discover upcoming opportunities

Spring is in the air, and our volunteer screeners are already hard at work watching our early-bird submissions. Be sure to get your film in by March 27 for our regular deadline, before submission fees go up. Or even better: share CFF’s open call with a friend!

We have two great partner events to highlight in this newsletter, and a whole set of upcoming opportunities and events for climate filmmakers below.

In this Newsletter:

• 🎥 Film Submission Open Call Deadline: March 27

• 🌍 Apply to the WORLDING 2026 Incubator

• 🎬 ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York: April 23-30

• 👏 Celebrating CFF’s Volunteer Team

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

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🎥 Open Call Deadline: March 27

Have you been thinking about submitting a film to CFF ’26? Now’s your chance—our regular deadline is coming up! While we’re accepting film submissions through May 15, our regular deadline is Friday, March 27. Submit today on FilmFreeway.

• 🍿 March 27: Regular Deadline

• 🎥 May 15: Extended Deadline (an additional $15 will apply to all submission fees)

For more info on the festival, our submission categories, and more, check out our FilmFreeway and our Open Call FAQ. We can’t wait to see your film!

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🌍 WORLDING 2026 is here! Open Call for Applications!

Our friends at Co-Creation Studio (MIT ODL) in collaboration with Agog: The Immersive Media Institute are excited to announce the return of WORLDING, an initiative to advance thought and practice at the intersection of storytelling, climate change planning, XR, visualization and land use place-based decision-making. The initiative, now in its fifth iteration, is accepting applications from teams to participate in the one-week virtual research and development workshop in the spring.

Apply Now! WORLDING is inviting teams with projects envisioning climate futures to apply for the 2026 WORLDING incubator, which will take place online from May 13-27, 2026. Interdisciplinary teams applying would ideally include 3 members, with at least one storyteller and one place-maker. Applications are open until March 18, 2026 (11:59pm ET).

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🎬 ReelAbilities Film Festival

Save the Date for the 18th Annual ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York, which returns from April 23-30!

ReelAbilities is the world’s leading film festival dedicated to advancing disability representation, accessibility, and inclusion through the power of storytelling. Renowned for its wide-ranging, award-winning international films, the festival showcases work by and about people with disabilities, positioning disability culture at the center of the contemporary arts landscape.

📍ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York

🗓️ April 23-30, 2026

🎬 Groundbreaking films that challenge stereotypes, expand perspectives, and highlight authentic lived experiences.

💬 Riveting conversations with filmmakers, artists, protagonists, & subject-matter experts that foster dialogue around disability justice, equity, creativity, and social impact.

🏙️ Events across NYC + online

ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York is more than a festival—it is a movement for inclusion, creativity, and community.

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👏 Celebrating CFF’s Volunteer Team

Last week, our team came together to celebrate the extraordinary volunteers who powered the first years of the Climate Film Festival. Our team is primarily volunteer-driven, and it’s thanks to this crew that CFF has grown from an idea into a vibrant community for climate cinema.

We met up at Anew, a gathering space and discovery center for the social impact community located in the West Village. CFF is proud to be participating in the spring 2026 cohort entrepreneurs-in-residence at Anew!

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🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 3/22: We Are Moving the Needle, Spring MicroGrants

• 3/23: TRIGGER — FOMU, Museum of Photography Antwerp Open Call: OCEAN OTHERWISE

• 3/23: Carnegie Science SOCIAL: Mission Matchmaker

• 3/27-3/28: Environmental Film Festival at Yale

• 4/2: Creative Capital for Artists, 2027 Creative Capital Open Call for the Creative Capital Award + State of the Art Prize

• 4/6: Changing Climate Changing Lives Film Festival, Film Grants

• 4/7: New York Foundation for the Arts Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants

• 4/13: Berkeley Film Foundation, 2026 Documentary Grant Program

• 4/14: Woodman Family Foundation, Housing Stability Grant for Artists

• 4/15: Science New Wave Fund III

• 4/18: Co-Creation Studio and Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, 2026 WORLDING INCUBATOR on Climate Futures

• 4/25: Hahapocalypse: A Comedy Show to Support Climate Activists Under Attack

• 4/29: Chicken & Egg Films, 2027 (Egg)celerator Lab

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

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