FAQ

The Flagship Festival is MOFF’s signature event held each July in Portland, Maine. Filmmakers, outdoor aficionados, environmentalists and lovers of art and storytelling converge under the stars for outdoor adventure and conservation films in Maine’s cultural hub.  

Each summer, we gather in the ocean air to watch, discuss, wonder, admire – and leave in sheer awe of what the earth and its good humans are capable of. The stories shared here feel bigger than all of us. They spark meaningful conversation, inspire action, and linger for years to follow.

MOFF’s main event is our flagship festival in July. The five-day flagship festival takes place at various venues in Maine’s culture capital, Portland, and is the first time films for the new festival season are shown. We host indoor and outdoor screenings each day, along with industry panels and networking events.

However, lots of Mainers can’t make it to Portland for the flagship festival! Enter: the Selects Tour. 

After the flagship festival, MOFF’s Selects Tour brings curated collections of selected films from the flagship festival to numerous towns and cities across Maine to meet Mainers where they are. From mid-August to late October, MOFF partners with venues and sponsors to produce indoor and outdoor short film screenings at theaters, businesses, restaurants, schools, parks, fields, and land trusts. No two screenings have the same film program. 

Nope! During our flagship festival in late July, The Maine Outdoor Film Festival (MOFF) screens films outdoors every night using a 20’ inflatable screen and modern audio and projection system. We also screen films inside every day at local theaters and art galleries in Portland.

Our films are shown at various venues across Portland, like outdoors on the Eastern Prom or inside at the Portland Museum of Art.

To see where and when our flagship festival screenings take place, keep an eye out for our 2026 flagship festival schedule. 

MOFF’s Selects Tour travels to numerous venues across Maine, both indoors and outdoors. To see where and when Selects Tour screenings take place, visit our Selects Tour schedule.

We always encourage folks to bring a blanket, camp chair, or other comfortable seating to our outdoor venues.

Summer nights in Maine can get chilly, so be sure to bring an extra layer. And don’t forget your bug dope!

The Maine Filmmaker Showcase is a collection of short films selected from our pool of submissions each festival season. These Maine-made films don’t always fall under the typical “MOFF film” umbrella – they’re usually more narrative, conceptual, or interpretive than the films screened at our flagship festival, Selects Tour, and winter and spring film events. The Maine Filmmaker Showcase intends to highlight the diversity of talent, creativity, and expertise of filmmakers in and from Maine. 

Each year, MOFF assembles a volunteer-based Screening Committee, made up of folks from across Maine with varied perspectives and experiences related to the outdoors + film; the environment + storytelling; and climate + cinematography. 

Once our submission period opens, screeners are assigned a unique set of films each month to watch and judge individually. MOFF also hosts an in-person Screening Committee meeting each month to watch and judge films as a group.

Criteria for the films include quality of the film, the emotional and intellectual engagement of the film, the film’s comprehensibility, and whether it is an “outdoor film.”

Each film is watched and judged at least three times. Once our submission period ends, our Feature Film Programmer and Short Film Programmer work together to slot the films and create the flagship festival film program.  

MOFF curates and produces film experiences related to the beauty, interactivity and complexity of our planet. This is open to interpretation, but topics could include outdoor adventure, outdoor sports, climate, love of the earth, and our relations to it – primarily through documentary films.

No way. Although we love and frequently screen Maine films, we’re an international film festival and have included films from the Netherlands, Dubai, Mexico, India, Germany, Iceland, Chad, Slovenia, France, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and more in our film programs.  

MOFF screens both feature films and short films throughout our flagship festival. For the ladder, we curate a 1.5-2 hour short film block screening (or “shorts block”) that consists of several short films 0-50 minutes in length each. 

MOFF does not provide an online option to watch the films, the reason being because of the film licensing. 

During COVID-19, it was common for filmmakers to extend their licenses so that they were included in festivals who adapted to showing the films online. However, this is no longer the case and we do not have the rights to provide this option. 

MOFF will often reach out to filmmakers following the festival to see if their film is available anywhere digitally, and we’ll release the information around publicly available films on our Substack.