2026 Maker Faire Two-Minute Film Festival

Lights. Camera. Make. Your Film. Our Stage.

The Maker Faire Two-Minute Film Festival is back for 2026 — and it’s your turn to roll camera. This is a celebration of backyard productions, hand-built practical effects, cardboard sets, homemade costumes, and sensational props cobbled together with pure maker ingenuity. Two minutes. That’s all it takes to prove anyone can make a movie — even you.
SUBMIT YOUR FILM
2025 Judges' Favs

A Showcase Built by Makers, for Makers​

This year’s theme is “Where Curiosity Leads” — and how you interpret it is entirely up to you. Sci-Fi, Drama, Comedy, Fantasy, Action, Horror, Musical, Children’s — all genres welcome. We welcome submissions from filmmakers of all ages, including school groups and clubs.

Films are free to submit and judged with an eye toward clever, creative craftsmanship. Animatronics, costume design, prop building, miniatures, mechanical rigging — if you’ve got a maker passion, this is your chance to put it on screen.

Selected favorites will be continuously screened at Maker Faire Bay Area on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, September 25–27, 2026. (You don’t need to attend to be selected — but we hope to see you there!)

Mark Your Calendars

June 5, 2026

Submissions Open

SEPTEMBER 8, 2026

Submissions Close

September 25–27, 2026

Showtime at Maker Faire

Film Festival Judges

ERIC LEVEN

Eric Leven is a visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic, and has worked on shows including Severance (2025) and F1: The Movie (2025). Leven previously served as visual effects supervisor for Marvel Studios and Tippett Studio, and helped bring action and wonder to such projects as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021), Cloverfield (2008), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), and the Neil deGrasse Tyson series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014).

NIL UNERDEM

Nil Unerdem majored in electrical engineering at Stanford and Columbia, and worked at Dolby Labs before pursuing filmmaking. Her dark comedy feature Human Stalk (Stowe NYX Horror Finalist, Blacklist Real Time Top List, Cinestory Retreat) is about zombie environmentalists and climate change. She also wrote and directed the short drama Pearl in the Window (SF Short Film Festival, Cascadia Women’s International Film Festival, BraveMaker Film Festival). Nil is the Board Secretary of Women in Film SF Bay Area.

JESSE VELEZ

Jesse Velez is a professional special effects designer and fabricator. He is the shop owner and lead designer at Raptor House FX LLC, which produces a wide variety of creature fx, collectibles, props, scenic art, and animatronics for film, television, and live events. Jesse has partnered with Netflix, 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Skybound Entertainment, NBC, and a wide variety of commercial clients and international brands. Jesse is the author of the forthcoming book Making for the Movies.

Kayla Lane

From a small town in Ohio to a galaxy far, far away, Kayla Lane has spent the last decade rising through the ranks of the film and television industry. As part of the Academy, Emmy, and BAFTA award-winning VFX team at Industrial Light and Magic, Lane recently served in visual effects coordinator and production roles for Andor (2022–25), The Mandalorian (2020–23), and The Irishman (2019). Before that, she served in roles for NBC, ABC, HGTV, and National Geographic on shows such as The Voice and American Idol.

Kevin Toyama

Kevin Toyama is the books editor for Make:, and has worked in publishing for over 20 years. He’s partnered with such organizations as the Golden State Warriors, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros., San Diego Comic-Con International, and the California Academy of Sciences on book projects, and written magazine features on the extraordinary creative talents at Pixar, Bungie, and Manual Cinema. He firmly believes that Flash Gordon (1980), Streets of Fire (1984), and Real Genius (1985) belong in The Criterion Collection.

What We're looking for
  • Submissions must have a run time of 2 minutes or less to be considered.
  • Filmmakers should include a short (250-word max) explanation of the techniques and skills used in their movie, so the judging panel and audiences can understand the craftsmanship involved, as well as a very short (100-word max) description of how their film follows the “Where Curiosity Leads” theme.
  • Films must be family friendly and appropriate for all audiences, with no explicit sexual content or graphic violence to be considered. (They should be more Wicked or Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves than The Northman; more Goosebumps or The Addams Family than Saw; more Project Hail Mary and Star Wars than Alien.)
  • No commercial advertisements for services or products are eligible.
  • No AI-generated content or solely computer-generated content will be considered.
  • Submitters understand that their film may be shown on one or more occasions, and may be used for advertising or promotional purposes.
  • Submitters warrant their films are their own creation and they own the rights to submit the film, and have obtained all necessary rights and releases for public screenings.
  • Filmmakers whose submission has been selected for showing will be notified in mid-September.

Questions? Email: FilmFest@make.co

Maker Faire Bay Area

Friday, September 25–27, 2026

Mare Island Naval Shipyard

560 Nimitz Ave. Vallejo, CA 94592