The TREE CITY FILM FESTIVAL 50 Hour Challenge 2025 is here!

The 13th annual Tree City Film Festival’s  50-hour Challenge is an exciting and intense weekend that invites teams of professional, student, non-professional, and even “armchair” filmmakers to write, shoot, edit, and premiere their own short films in just 50 hours. 

Teams start the challenge at the kickoff meeting on the evening of September 12th, where they receive a series of elements that must be incorporated into their film – things like a particular genre, prop, line of dialogue, character name, and shooting location. After the allotted 50 hours (Sept 12-14th) are over and the films are accepted, they are juried by a guest panel of judges and premier at the Tree City Film Festival on  November 8, 2025. Prizes from $100-$500 are awarded to the winning films.

Registration is now open, $25/team or $20/Student teams. Registration payment is made here. Film Rules are found here.

The TCFF 2024 EXAMPLE FILM “SpirIT” (Location: downtown Sylvania, Prop: jewelry, Line": “I’ve done this a thousand times”)

You can see all of our archived films on youtube.

Tree City Film Festival

November 8, 2025

Nederhouser Hall, Olander Park -Mingle at 6 wih pizza and local brews, movies at 7

Tickets will be available soon and available at the door!

Shorties U is back for 2025!

    Filmmaking workshop for kids in grades 5-8

Application Link and Workshop info is below.

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Shorties-U Filmmaking Workshop for Kids

Shorties U is an engaging four-week filmmaking workshop for youth in grades 5-8. Led by area film experts, this creative learning experience takes students through the steps of creating their own short films – including how to develop a story, write a script, shoot on a budget and film editing. By the end of the workshop, students will have created a short film (under 8 min.) that will premier at our Shorties U film screening. Our classes will run the four Saturdays of February from 9 am-Noon (Feb. 1, 8, 15, 22, 2025)-The workshop fee is $110.

STEPS FOR REGISTRATION:

  1. Complete the online APPLICATION FORM (<-Link)

  2. Your application will be reviewed by our mentor committee, by Jan. 10th you

    will be notified if you are accepted to the workshop or placed on a waitlist.

  3. If accepted to the workshop, you will be linked to the class registration and payment website.

Here is a link to previous Shorties U workshop videos (and our Tree City Film Festival films)

Our refund policy

Thank you to our Tree City Film Festival Sponsors!

Please support our sponsors, they make all the difference in what we can do for the arts in Sylvania!

The 13th Annual Tree City Film Festival-50 Hour Film Challenge-2025

The 13th annual Tree City Film Festival’s  50-hour Challenge is an exciting and intense weekend that invited teams of professional, student, non-professional, and even “armchair” filmmakers to write, shoot, edit, and premiere their own short films in just 50 hours. 

Teams start the challenge at the kickoff meeting on the evening of September 12th, where they receive a series of elements that must be incorporated into their film – things like a particular genre, prop, line of dialogue, character name, and shooting location. After the allotted 50 hours of the weekend are over and the films accepted, they are juried by a guest panel of judges. 

Registration will open in July/August

Film making rules are found at the link below.

Join us for the film screening on November 8th at the Tree City Film Festival 6pm at Nederhouser Hall at Olander Park in Sylvania. Pizza, popcorn, local brews and the best local films in Sylvania. Awards will be given for first place ($500), second place ($250), and audience choice ($100).

Tickets for the Film Festival will be on sale near the event time.

Until then you can see ALL the films made for our film related programming by clicking here - enjoy these movies made by and for people in our community!

TEAMS: If you are on a film team, you can find the rules using the button below. Remember to use the hashtag #treecityfilmfestival2025 and tag us on social media so we can follow your filmmaking fun on filming weekend!