This is the first time I’m listing Media City on the Underground Film Journal, but it sounds like an underground film festival that I should have been covering the past couple of years had I known about it. That’s what I get for only setting up online alerts for festivals with an actual “underground” in the name.

Media City takes place in Windsor, Ontario, Canada and the fest tags itself as the “Annual International Festival of Experimental Film & Video Art.” They screen movies as well as live cinema performance pieces and digital media installations. Looking over last year’s lineup, Media City seems to consist mostly of short films, although they did screen James Benning’s feature-length RR, which also played at a bunch of experimental film sidebars at the major festivals, e.g. Toronto and New York. However, their entry form doesn’t say they only want shorts.

The 2009 edition of Media City, which will be their 15th, will run May 12-16. There’s only one deadline date you need to be aware of:

Final Deadline:
Jan. 16, 2009

There are also no entry fees.

The festival also doesn’t really have a “mission statement” posted on their website. The only basic description of the fest they give is:

Each year Media City screens approximately fifty new films and videos in all gauges and formats in its international competition programs. The festival also hosts retrospective screenings and discussions with featured artists and presents installations in Artcite Inc. and other venues.

But, looking over their promoted list of award winners and featured artists, you can kind of gauge what they’re after. That list includes Guy Maddin, Peter Tscherkassky, Leighton Pierce, Luis Recoder, Matt McCormick, Martin Arnold, Dagie Brundert & Ramona Welsh, Julie Murray, and Steve Reinke.

For submission guidelines and forms, please visit the official Media City site.

And check out the Underground Film Journal’s list of film festivals for more great underground fests to submit to.