The long-running Valley Film Festival has been awarded a Neighborhood Purpose Grant by the NoHo Neighborhood Council to produce its signature Made-in-the-818 Film Program for “818 Day” on August 18, 2026.
After wrapping as a multi-day, annual event last year after 25 years, The Valley Film Festival is returning as a one-day festival on August 18, 2026, exclusively screening shorts and features made in the San Fernando Valley.
Since its founding in 2000, VFF has served as the preeminent platform for Valley-made films and both professional and student filmmakers.
The festival made their case to the NoHo Neighborhood Council, submitting over a dozen letters of support from community stakeholders, filmmakers and alumni as well as multiple public comments supporting awarding a neighborhood purpose grant. The grant will allow the festival to be held at the Laemmle NoHo 7 and give free tickets to attendees.
VFF has also worked to support and promote higher education in the San Fernando Valley, offering submission waivers and discount codes to student filmmakers at the local community college—Los Angeles Valley College—serving East Valley residents. In 2016 and 2025, students were invited to submit their work and were provided discount codes, resulting in world premieres of Leyla Nejad’s project Unshackled, screened at VFF16, and Hila Cage Coppola’s The Talk at VFF25.
In 2017 and 2018, VFF provided community (free) tickets to foreign and documentary film programs at the Laemmle NoHo 7 to students and faculty attending Columbia College Hollywood in Tarzana, New York Film Academy in Burbank, and the NoHo Art Institute.
In 2024, VFF produced an encore screening of their 10 Degrees Hotter Award for Best International Feature winner, Ciure, at LAVC, where students and the public received free tickets.
During VFF25, the final edition of the multi-day annual festival, students and faculty in the LAVC and CSUN World Language Departments received free admission to language programs in Italian, Danish, and Spanish.
Submissions for the VFF26 Made-in-the-818 Program opened on George Washington’s birthday, February 16, 2026 and will continue until June 2026.
Movies that have not screened in Los Angeles, and are not available for free online, will be given priority consideration in programming.
Valley filmmakers are encouraged to submit their movies on FilmFreeway at filmfreeway.com/TheValleyFilmFestival.
