Why a music video site is running a film festival

Videojam started as a place to watch music videos without handing your evening to a recommendation engine. The catalog is hand-picked. The hubs are curated. The point of the site is that someone stood behind the next thing you see.

That is also why we are running a film festival.

Videojam Fest is the first edition: a single night in Vienna where the same human taste that shapes the site becomes a programme in a room. Short films, music videos, awards, then DJ sets. A screening night that belongs to the product, not a brand activation bolted onto a calendar.

The idea

A music video site and a film festival sound like different businesses until you notice what they share. Both live or die on selection. Both ask an audience to trust a short list more than an infinite scroll. Both treat runtime as something you sit through, not something you skip.

Videojam already sits between music and cinema. The catalog holds music videos, DJ sets, and a Cinema side. The festival is that overlap made physical: one evening across the whole spectrum, human-curated start to finish.

We are putting the site's premise on a schedule, not inventing a second brand. Sunday 4 October 2026, doors at 19:00, at Pickwicks in Vienna, the day after Waves Vienna. Register free on Luma. Details stay on /festival.

Why Pickwicks

The venue is load-bearing, not decorative.

Pickwicks is a bar in the first district that began life as one of Vienna's first English language video stores. Marc-Aurel-Strasse 10-12, 1010 Vienna. A room that already knew how people used to choose tapes together, before feeds chose for them.

That history matters for a night about watching with intention. We are screening in a place that once sold the act of picking something and staying with it, not hiring a black-box cinema and pretending the walls do not matter. About 35 seats. Limited on purpose. Capacity is the constraint, not a ticket ladder. Registration is free.

The day after Waves Vienna

Waves Vienna runs the days before. Videojam Fest lands on the Sunday after: 4 October 2026. For people already in town for music, the festival is a film and video night that does not compete with the weekend's stages. For people who live here, it is a small programme with a clear door time and a clear end.

Doors at 19:00. Seven selected works, about 63 minutes, each introduced before it screens. Q&A with directors who can make it to Vienna. A music video and video dance showcase as its own block. The awards. DJ sets by Musty Camara and Alan More to close the night. The evening ends at 23:00.

That structure is the whole argument in schedule form. Watch. Talk. Award. Dance.

How selection worked

Entries closed 25 September 2026. Filmmakers are notified and the lineup is announced on 29 September 2026. The festival itself is 4 October 2026.

Nothing here is algorithm-sorted. The film programme is curated by Vilo Torralvo, who also curates Videojam Cinema. The Official Selection is a human list: watched, argued over, ordered for one room on one night. The site's thesis and the festival's thesis are the same sentence.

Well over a thousand entries from dozens of countries came in through FilmFreeway.

What the page does state is the award shape: a jury awards first, second and third place; a separate jury award goes to the best music video or video dance piece; the audience votes for the Audience Award on the night by scanning the QR code in the room (it opens /festival/audience-award).

Prizes

The awards: first, second and third place are an iPad, a $100 FilmFreeway credit, and a certificate plus laurel. Best Music Video / Video Dance is four weeks on the Videojam homepage plus a studio session. The Audience Award is a certificate plus laurel.

What selection means

Every Official Selection film gets a permanent place in the Videojam Fest 2026 Official Selection collection on videojam.live, with director credit and a link to the film, and an Official Selection laurel. Winners receive a winner laurel; Best Music Video / Video Dance also includes the homepage run and studio session above. With the filmmaker's permission, work may be featured in the newsletter and on social. Entrants who opted in keep their films in the Submissions Showcase after the festival.

Why free registration, and why so few seats

A free RSVP is not a claim that the night is casually empty. It is a claim that the barrier should be attention, not a price gate, for a first edition this size. Thirty-five seats means the room fills early. Register on Luma if you mean to come. The festival page at /festival carries the date, venue, free registration, and the programme shape.

What this is not

It is not a content farm with a party attached, and it is not a substitute for the catalog. The catalog stays online after the night; the night is finite.

Come for the premise

If you already use Videojam because you want someone to choose with you, Videojam Fest is that choice in Vienna for one Sunday. If you have never used the site, the festival is still legible without an account: short films and music videos in a former video store, introduced, awarded, then closed by Musty Camara and Alan More.

Register free: https://luma.com/3k58cb4g.

Festival page: /festival.

See you at Pickwicks.