Photo courtesy of Ashton Campbell.
The Oak Cliff Film Festival has announced new dates for the 2026 rendition, with the 15th edition of the neighborhood film fest running July 30-Aug. 2, 2026.
Typically, the hyper-local event has run in June for the last 14 festivals, so switching it up is kind of a big deal, festival co-director Ashton Campbell said. He added that with the World Cup coming to Dallas during June it didn’t make sense to try and run OCFF at the same time.
“It’s just more difficult because we’ve got this massive global event happening, and the World Cup is so huge that we don’t want anybody to feel like they’re missing out on something like that in our city that we might want to take part in,” he said. “You know, there’s going to be some activities in Oak Cliff and we want to be able to showcase them rather than compete with them, right?”
Although the dates are a little different, Campbell said that there are no major changes to the film requirements.
Submissions are open for high-caliber work of all types of genres and styles from all over the world. Strong consideration is given to films that have not received prior exposure in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
“I feel that we’re always hosting filmmakers that are on the festival circuit and trying to get their films shown and haven’t received distribution yet, and are trying to get their film on a fresh set of eyes,” Campbell said.
Internally, the organization is trying to focus on showcasing independent films, he said. He also added that OCFF always wants Texas student filmmakers to submit their films.
“We get films from all over the nation, and we have a lot of repeat filmmakers that aren’t from Texas,” he said. “We really love when we can showcase Texas filmmakers, and at the North Texas or DFW base, that’s even better.”
