Behind the New Media Film Festival® with Susan Johnston
Susan Johnston has spent years watching the industry shift and still finds new ways to keep storytellers in the frame. She founded the New Media Film Festival in 2009 and continues to steer it as a place where traditional craft meets the latest tools without losing its focus on the work itself.
Her path into the business started early. She spent time on sets as a kid and met Robert Redford while her father handled antique cars for The Great Gatsby. That early exposure led to work as an actress, producer, and casting director before she launched Select Services Films, Inc. and turned her attention to building a festival that could adapt as media changed.
Redefining storytelling together
The New Media Film Festival has grown into a hybrid event that runs across in-person screenings and online participation. Its mandate remains simple: honor stories worth telling for creators of every age, culture, and format. The 17th edition took place June 3-4, 2026, and featured 80 projects from 14 countries.
Johnston built the festival after the 2008 economic downturn, when many studio and independent workers were losing steady work. She spoke with colleagues about what might help people move forward and landed on the idea of a creative sandbox that could connect talent, showcase work, and open distribution paths. That core mission has stayed consistent since the first edition.
She keeps the lineup balanced by offering both classic categories like animation, documentary, feature film, and shorts alongside technology-driven ones. As tools evolve, the festival adds or drops categories based on what creators are actually using, with the current list updated on the submit page at www.newmediafilmfestival.com/submit.
Recent Festival Highlights and 2026 Edition
The 2026 edition ran as a hybrid event with an early lineup that included David Byrne, Pendulum & Wargasm, and Bob Weis. Eighty projects from fourteen countries received recognition, and the program mixed traditional screenings with experiential presentations. The hybrid model let participants choose in-person or online access, with Q&A sessions and networking options built in for both tracks.
Standout moments continue to reflect the festival’s open-door policy. Past editions have featured a two-year-old actress on the red carpet and a ninety-three-year-old director screening a 3D project. One filmmaker told Johnston that the event felt like the future of festivals because it honored work across every discipline and ethnicity without forcing anyone to fit a single mold.
Expanded Tech Categories in 2026
The festival now runs twenty-eight classic and tech categories. Newer emphases include AI-generated cinema, holographic comics, VR funding pitches, and NFT-driven storytelling. Johnston’s own background as a technology tester in high school and later in Los Angeles with equipment from Panasonic and RED gave her a practical view of what tools actually do when creators experiment with them.
She learned early that useful technology needs to work with other systems, protect creators’ ownership, and stay accessible. When those conditions are met, she has seen the work reach further. When tools stay locked behind paywalls or rights agreements, the reach narrows quickly. The 2026 categories were chosen with that balance in mind.
Notable 2026 Participants and Recognition
The 2026 lineup included Emmy nominees and Oscar winners among the participants. The Grand Prize winner that year was Emmy nominee Jonathan Thunder. Judges came from PBS, BBC, ABC, the Emmys, the Grammys, Simon & Schuster, BMI, and other major organizations, so even non-winning submissions received review from people who can move careers forward. Since the festival’s founding, several submitters have landed publishing deals, auditions, funding, and distribution after their work was seen here.
Johnston keeps the judging process clean by making sure no one evaluates a project from someone they know or have worked with. That rule has held through every edition and continues to be noted by creators who return or recommend the festival to others.
Looking Ahead to 2027
The 18th edition is scheduled for June 2-3, 2027, in Los Angeles. The hybrid format will keep online programming on June 2 and in-person events on June 3. Johnston expects the category list to keep shifting as new tools appear and older ones find fresh uses, but the goal stays the same: give creators from every background a place to show work that might not fit anywhere else.
Nominees still receive an eco-friendly red carpet, Q&A time after screenings, networking sessions, and promotional support. The Grand Prize includes meetings with HBO and Marvel along with studio time and production services. Past winners and nominees have used those connections to move projects into production or secure additional funding. The festival continues to track those outcomes without promising specific results, since the next step always depends on the creator’s own preparation and follow-through.
Johnston’s early training with Uta Hagen still shapes how she talks about the work. She keeps certain details close, but the record shows consistent attention to fairness, access, and the practical needs of people trying to get their stories seen. The New Media Film Festival remains one of the few events that treats emerging formats and traditional storytelling as part of the same conversation rather than separate tracks.
