The New Hampshire Film Festival made its initial debut in 2001 in Derry, New Hampshire. In 2004, the festival moved to its permanent home in the charming seacoast town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Portsmouth is consistently honored on “best places to live” lists, has been named one of the “Top 100 Walking Cities” in America by Prevention Magazine, and Forbes Traveler listed it as one of America’s Prettiest Towns.
Portsmouth’s downtown district could not be better suited for a film festival. Screening venues, party venues, shops, waterfront dining, hotels, and inns are all within walking distance. If that’s not enough, the festival takes place in autumn when the New England foliage is at its peak.
Experience the New Hampshire Film Festival
Settled in 1623, Portsmouth boasts stunning historic venues throughout the city.
In 2024, the festival joined the nonprofit organization The Music Hall, which brings performing arts and film programming to New Hampshire year-round. The beautifully restored Music Hall, a festival screening venue since the move to Portsmouth in 2004, now runs the event and features the most up-to-date technology with a seating capacity of almost 900. One block away, the newly completed Music Hall Lounge brings the prestige and technical standards of the main stage to a more intimate setting.
At the entrance of the downtown district, The Moffatt Ladd House is a National Historic Landmark retrofitted with projection equipment sitting on the property of a prominent Georgian mansion built in the 1760’s. For more than four decades, The Press Room has been a social hotspot and now features an upstairs recently converted into a theater space. And a new addition in 2015, 3S Artspace, encompasses an art gallery and a screening venue for 200.
We hope you’ll join us this October.
