Monster Fest, Australia’s premier genre film festival celebrating cult, horror and the fantastic, returns for its seventh edition November 22 to 26, 2017 at the Lido Cinemas in Melbourne.

These dates include the festival’s industry component, The Swinburne University Media and Communication Monster Academy, which will kick off the festival November 22 and 23.

Submissions are now open for Features, Short Films and Expanded Cinema Projects, with an Early Bird Deadline of April 21, a Regular Deadline of June 16 and a final, Extended Deadline of August 4, 2017.

“We had a huge increase in submissions in 2016,” says Festival Director Kier-La Janisse. “And it really diversified our approach to programming. In addition to horror, which is always a staple at Monster Fest, we brought in more crime films, westerns, documentary and animation than ever before, and our audience really went with it – we ended up having our most successful year to date.”