Official screening dates haven’t been announced yet — although the fest typically runs in early November — the 24th annual AFI Film Festival is now officially looking for submissions. There are two deadlines, one for shorts and one for features:

Shorts Deadline:
July 30

Features Deadline:
August 13

I also don’t have entry fee information, but you can probably find that out once you start the Withoutabox submission process. AFI is usually a fairly diverse festival, ranging from screening major independent films — last year they screened Precious and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus — to very offbeat, quirky films such as Jessica Oreck‘s lovely Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo and short films by Kevin Jerome Everson and Jim Finn.

The 2009 edition of the festival was the first year much of it was free for audiences. The “See a Film on Us!” promotion proved to be so successful that AFI will be bringing it back in 2010. All daytime screenings will be free to everyone and a limited number of free tickets will be given out for evening screenings and galas, which includes the Opening and Closing Night films.

There will also be a new leadership running the festival this year. AFI programmer Jacqueline Lyanga has been promoted to Festival Director and, joining her, will be Lane Kneedler who will be the Associate Director of Programming. Derek Call returns as Festival Producer.

(I feel like I should also mention that while I personally currently work for the AFI institute, I don’t have anything to do with the festival.)