CALIFORNIA, Md. — The Southern Maryland Film Festival is back this year, but without any new films.
Because the festival is reorganizing, it did not take submissions for 2026, organizer David Norton said in an Oct. 22 announcement. Instead, it will hold a “Best of the Fest” screening of entries from its first 10 years.
The screening starts at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, at R/C Theatres’ Lexington Exchange Movies 12, 44800 Oak Crest Drive in California. It falls on the same day Historic St. Mary’s City opens its new visitor center, giving St. Mary’s County two cultural draws that weekend.
The announcement did not list which films will be shown or ticket prices. Details are expected on the festival’s website, somdfilmfest.org.
A decade of local film
The festival began in 2015, started by a group of St. Mary’s County film fans to showcase work made in the region. Early festivals drew films from Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties, and by 2018 entries were coming from across Maryland, Chesapeake Bay Magazine reported at the time. Its first two years featured about 40 films and drew more than 300 people, and in 2018 organizers chose 27 films from hundreds of submissions.
In recent years the festival has settled at the Lexington Exchange theater, where it has screened films in themed blocks with filmmakers on hand to answer questions afterward, according to Visit St. Mary’s. It accepts films of all genres, with a focus on work made in Southern Maryland.
The festival did not say in its announcement what the reorganization involves or whether it plans to return to a juried competition with new submissions in 2027.
