StopTrik extends its 2026 call for entries

StopTrik International Film Festival extended the submission deadline for its 16th edition to July 17, 2026. The official notice confirms four programming lanes: a traditional Stop Motion Competition, an experimental Borderlands Competition, a children’s stop-motion section, and non-competitive panorama screenings. Eligible entries may be professional, student, or independent productions, including music videos and individual series episodes, provided that stop-motion techniques are used in at least part of the work, the film was completed after January 1, 2024, and the runtime does not exceed 30 minutes.

The announcement is useful beyond the deadline itself because it documents how a specialist festival currently defines the field. StopTrik explicitly includes puppet, clay, cut-out, pixilation, and object animation within its main competition, while reserving Borderlands for works that combine stop motion with other animation or live-action methods. That distinction offers a practical contemporary example of how festivals separate technique-led stop motion from hybrid work without excluding either from the wider culture.