Ingrid Solheim
Festival DirectorFounder, former programmer at the Norwegian Film Institute. Leads the office and the international jury.
We are a small, independent organisation in Oslo with one ambition: to take the short film as seriously as the world takes the feature.
In the autumn of 2020, six friends — two programmers, a sound engineer, a film critic and two graduate directors — booked the small auditorium at Vega Scene for a single Sunday evening of short cinema. They expected forty people. Two hundred and twelve showed up. The lights came up after the screening and nobody quite moved. By eleven that night, the decision had been made to do it again.
The first official edition launched in May 2021 with thirty-two films from nineteen countries, screened across one long weekend. The second edition tripled in size. The third moved into a second venue. In 2024 we moved the closing ceremony into the Oslo Konserthus.
In 2026 — the year you are reading this — we celebrate our sixth edition with more than two thousand submissions, partner programmes in Bergen and Tromsø, and an industry talent campus that brings together producers, sales agents and emerging directors from across Europe and Asia.
We have grown. But the night still ends, as it always does, with everyone walking out into the long Nordic dusk a little slower than they walked in.
We are deliberately small, deliberately slow, and deliberately stubborn about a few things. They are not new ideas; we just take them seriously.
Not a calling card, not a sketch, not an audition for a feature — a complete work, judged on its own terms. Our jury reads every submission with that respect.
Every selected film receives a screening fee. Award-winning works receive cash prizes in addition to honors and post-production grants from our partners.
We programme for curious viewers, not only for industry. Half of all tickets are reserved for the public, with a quarter at student prices.
The festival has grown roughly twofold in audience every two years. The honor list, of course, only grows — never shrinks. Below is the briefest possible chronicle.
Full Honor Roll →Thirty-two films from nineteen countries, screened across three days at Vega Scene. The opening night sold out in 18 minutes. A Letter to the North wins the inaugural Grand Prix.
Six full days, two venues, a delegation from Cannes Critics' Week. The Fjord at Five takes the Grand Prix. The first OSFF Talent Lab launches with twelve student directors.
Submissions from sixty-one countries for the first time. The jury — chaired by Pedro Almodóvar's longtime editor — sits for fourteen consecutive hours. Salt Water wins the Grand Prix.
The closing ceremony moves to Oslo Konserthus. A live string quartet underscores the awards. The Last Sermon at Vík becomes the first Icelandic Grand Prix winner.
The Industry Lounge opens at Kulturhuset. Twenty-two sales agents attend. A reciprocal partnership with the Clermont-Ferrand and Tampere short festivals is signed. A Room Full of Birches wins.
Seventy-four countries, two thousand one hundred and seventeen submissions, an expanded experimental programme, and a Grand Prix to The Crane Canvas — the first time the top prize goes to a debut collective.
The OSFF office is run by five full-time staff working out of a single fourth-floor flat near Akerselva. Each May we are joined by more than one hundred volunteers, twenty selectors, fifteen jury members and a global network of partner festivals.
Founder, former programmer at the Norwegian Film Institute. Leads the office and the international jury.
Curates the festival's selection across all four competitive strands. Co-author of the OSFF style guide.
Runs the Industry Lounge and Talent Campus. Builds partnerships with sales agents, distributors and other festivals.
Operations and budget. Negotiates venues. Knows where every cable and every programme booklet is at all times.
Designs the festival's relationship with its public. Runs the schools programme, communications and the OSFF Letter.
Volunteers, projectionists, runners, translators, programmers, photographers, drivers and the kind of friends who answer the phone at 02:00.
OSFF publishes a one-page financial summary every year in the September Letter. The breakdown is broadly stable from year to year.
Norwegian Film Institute, City of Oslo, Nordic Culture Fund and Talent Norge.
Audience tickets, industry accreditation and the Talent Campus contribution fee.
Cultural foundations and private trusts that support our open submissions and translation work.
A modest but loyal group of named private patrons listed in the festival booklet each May.
News from the office, curated short film recommendations, calls for submission and the occasional long-read from our programmers.