Digital film festivals emerged in the mid to late 1990s, to showcase artists and filmmakers utilizing the nascent tools of desktop digital filmmaking.
Digital films and animation are now commonly found in mainstream film festivals, but these events laid the groundwork for pioneering works in the area as useful nexus points for digital artists and debates on digital distribution and creation.
The earliest digital film festivals included the MiniDV Festival (now called The Digital Video Festival) in Los Angeles, Low Res (later to split into the DFilm and RESFest events), onedotzero, and Exploding Cinema (the International Film Festival Rotterdam digital cinema sidebar). Other digital film festivals include .Mov (Japan), Darklight (Ireland), Bifilm (Germany), MP4Fest at Silver Lake Film Festival (Los Angeles, CA), l0110 (India), Clone (Norway), as well as onedotzero's international network of events across 60 cities worldwide, among others.
These festivals stretch the traditional boundaries of 'film festivals' by including hybrid works from internet art, web animation, computer and video gaming, streaming video, music video, etc.