THE MONTHLY FESTIVAL PROCESS 

All submissions are watched in their entirety by our team.

Judges score the quality and creativity of entries on a performance scale and against a high standard of merit. Films are awarded points for several criteria according to the category they have been submitted to by each judge. Points are then added up to establish category ranking. Some categories can have no winners if there are no submissions meeting the established standard of merit.

On the Notification Date, films with the highest scores will be part of the Official Selection for the month and will receive an email notification with the Officially selected laurel. Non-selected films will be notified via FilmFreeway at the same time.

The Award Winners of each category and Honorable Mentions chosen from the Official Selections will be announced on the Event Date. 

The event date in FilmFreeway designates the day of the announcement of the award winners of each monthly round.

The Annual Showcase Event will have a different timeline that is announced through our website and social media outlets. All submitters are always kept in the loop and in advance to be able to do the preparations to attend the events.

ANNUAL SHOWCASE EVENT 
The annual cycle consists of 10 monthly competitions. The award winners of these qualify for the Annual Showcase Event. From the pool of selected Award Winners, a subset of projects will be selected by the programmers of Touchstone Independent Film Festival to be publicly screened in Cocoa Beach, Florida in December of 2024.

The filmmakers whose films are selected to be showcased will be notified 30 days prior to the event.