The Sunscreen Film Festival is currently accepting submissions until the December 16, 2022 deadline. Gathering annually in St. Petersburg, Florida, the 2023 festival will be April 27-30. Sundial AMC 12 located at the Mall at Sundial is where the festival is held. The festival invites attendees to mix and mingle with filmmakers, actors, writers, producers and celebrities in an open and relaxed atmosphere.
The Sunscreen Film Festival started in 2005, then titled "Sunscreen Film and Video Festival" and was standing room only with over 600 attendees in the two day festival of 35 shorts and feature films.
In 2013, the Sunscreen Film Festival expanded to Los Angeles, holding two film festivals each year: the original St. Petersburg, Florida version in the spring and the newly opened Los Angeles version in the fall. Between 2013-2014, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences proudly selected Sunscreen to join its ranks as the 23rd film festival in the nation to be sponsored and acknowledged and awarded a Festival Grant.
Today, Sunscreen boasts an annual attendance of over 10,000 and is organized and presented by the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Film Society, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization, which is dedicated to educating the public about the art of visual storytelling, enhancing opportunities for filmmakers to develop their craft and art, and increasing the public's awareness and support of filmmaking as a cultural asset.