UPDATE:
Due to unforseen circumstances, the Wadsworth Museum has to close on Friday, May 1. The Hartford Film Festival is now rescheduled for Saturday, May 2 at 2 p.m. with doors opening at 1:30 p.m.
The University of Hartford Cinema Program is proud to announce the 4th Annual Hartford Film Festival, taking place Saturday, May 2 at 2 p.m. at the Wadsworth Museum’s Avery Theatre. One of Hartford’s most iconic venues, the Wadsworth is the oldest continually operating public art museums in the United States.
The Hartford Film Festival (HFF) is a student-led festival based in Connecticut's Capital City. Much like the culturally rich city around it, this festival aims to support and uplift the diverse stories from emerging filmmakers, especially those who are based in New England. Our goal is to put the unseen creative works of the breakout film community into the spotlight, providing an opportunity for filmmakers to showcase their work in a supportive and creative environment. We hope to harbor the new generation of films and filmmakers to the wide, enriched audience that deserves to experience them.
The festival is curated by a team of University of Hartford Cinema Program students in Assistant Professor Anna Hogg's Film Festival Curation class, who collectively shaped the program’s vision, goals, and priorities. HFF was founded in 2022 by UHart Cinema Program Director, Lauren Cook, as a way to showcase student work on a bi-annual basis. This year marks a significant milestone: for the first time, submissions were opened to filmmakers worldwide, with an emphasis on emerging voices—students, recent graduates, and early-career professionals.
The 2026 program features a selection of 16 shorts, spanning documentary, narrative, music video, and experimental forms: the meaning of life, the meaning of death, and the power of love that navigates through it all. Big ideas for the modern world shown on the silver screen. With a focus on emerging filmmakers, we aim to showcase a diverse collection of stories from all over world: from a Mexican American snake with a deadly love of fashion to a sentient pot of soup; from love stories that blossom, to ones that wither. It’s a combination of genres, ranging from diaristic features that shine a spotlight on someone’s soul, colorful animated music videos that paint powerful stories, gritty experimental films that challenge viewers, confrontations among cowboys, and even a seriously trivial conversation at the end of the world. The selected sixteen films in this program will keep your eyes glued to the screen with the strong cinematography, visual and audio storytelling, and compelling performances. These films work together to create their own creative world, fully immersing the viewer in art of cinema.
Hartford Film Festival looks forward to sharing the work of this year’s filmmakers with the local community. Admission is free and open to the public.