The Health for All Film Festival

The Health for All Film Festival
Woman filming

Films are a powerful way to raise awareness, improve understanding and encourage action, so that this festival aims to contribute to health promotion and education about health.

The WHO Health for All Film Festival invites independent film-makers, production companies, public institutions, NGOs, communities, students, and film schools from around the world to submit their original short films on health. The festival aims to recruit a new generation of film and video innovators to champion and promote global health issues.

Film competition categories for 2021 

The main competition categories for the second Health for All film festival hosted by WHO will be aligned with the Organization’s global goals for public health.

Submissions will be open until 30 January 2021.

For submitting a short film, the copyright owner of the film must choose one category of competition among the three described below, which relate to WHO’s global health targets set out in the Thirteenth General Programme of Work (GPW13):  

  • Universal health coverage (UHC) – films about mental health, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and other UHC stories linked to communicable diseases not part of emergencies;
  • Health emergencies – films about health emergencies, for instance COVID-19, Ebola, disaster relief and health in war-zones;
  • Better health and well-being – films about environmental and social determinants of health, such as nutrition, sanitation, pollution, gender, and/or about health promotion or health education.

For each of these three grand prix categories, candidates can submit short documentaries or fiction films of 3 to 8 minutes in length; short videos specifically crafted for social media; or animation films of 1 to 5 minutes in length for all the described categories.

In addition, juries can nominate special prizes (listed below) for short-listed videos not receiving a GRAND PRIX. From this pool, the Director-General can choose up to three special prizes.

The winners of GRAND PRIX are not eligible for special prizes. In addition, there will be only one special prize per candidate. 

The special prizes are:

  • Student-produced film: videos of 3 to 8 minutes long produced by students who are legal adults in their country and enrolled in formal education, including audio-visual and film-making schools.
  • Health educational film aimed at youth: videos of 3 to 8 minutes long produced with a specific educational goal.
  • Video designed specifically for social media: videos of 1 to 5 minutes.

Please read our film festival application rules for more details.

We use FilmFreeway for submissions, please click here to submit.