Moving Parts Puppet Film Fest opens its 2027 short-film competition

Moving Parts Puppet Film Fest has opened submissions for its 2027 competition, with separate categories for stop-motion puppet animation, live-action puppetry, and student work. The programme also includes awards intended to recognise distinctive materials and storytelling, promising low-budget work, and films that create an unexpected response through their process or narrative. The early-bird deadline was July 31, 2026, while the regular submission deadline is March 1, 2027, and the festival is scheduled for April 5–9, 2027.

The official call defines puppet film broadly enough to include cut-out and shadow puppetry as well as stop-motion puppet animation and live-action puppetry. Moving Parts Arts presents the event with Tyneside Cinema and Newcastle-based stop-motion animator Lesley-anne Rose, continuing a festival structure that places stop-motion alongside wider contemporary puppetry rather than treating it as an isolated form.