2025 Award Winners
Best Overall: 8 AM
What happens when the dreams you cultivate come into conflict with the real responsibility of life? Many people find their greatest talent cast aside in the face of life’s daily pressures and discover there’s rarely an easy answer forward. 8 AM explores life’s choices, dreams, and sacrifices.
Directed by THOMAS MENDOLIA
Written & Produced by MICHAEL J TOUREK
Starring MICHAEL J TOUREK, BETHANY ANN LIND, LEE SPENCER, PRESLEY MCKINNEY, CHIP JOHNSON, DUSTIN LUTZ
Director of Photography HARVEY K ROBINSON
Best in Category: Action
Runestone
Norse saga where one man’s quest to reunite his family will destroy everything. Blood comes first.
Best in Category: Animation
Mistletoe
Mistletoe tells the holiday horror story of the Baron, his new Lady wife, and a game they play to a terrible end.
Best in Category: Comedy
Ms. Rossi 3: Ms. Rossi Meets the Mob
While traveling for work, Ms. Rossi gets picked up by the wrong driver at the airport.
Best in Category: Documentary
One Fighting Irishman
The story of one man’s legal battle to regain American citizenship for more than 5,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry forced to renounce amidst turmoil and violence at the Tule Lake Segregation Center, considered the worst of America’s ten WWII concentration camps. It took attorney Wayne M. Collins more than 23 years to restore citizenship for nearly all of them.
Best in Category: Drama
8 AM
What happens when the dreams you cultivate come into conflict with the real responsibility of life? Many people find their greatest talent cast aside in the face of life’s daily pressures and discover there’s rarely an easy answer forward. 8 AM explores life’s choices, dreams, and sacrifices.
Best in Category: Experimental
Fireworks at a Funeral
An atmospheric short film showcasing the hauntingly beautiful spoken-word poetry of North Carolina poet Willie Writes.
Best in Category: Horror
Kruz’
“If hell is around the corner, Jonny got himself a ticket”
The film follows Jonny Favorite as he struggles to remember the truth about a specific day in his life, all while being questioned by Louise Cypher.
Best in Category: Music
The High King’s Daughter
This romantic drama follows Ruairí and the Princess, as the playful friendship of their youth blossoms into love. The High King observes the growing attraction between the two and hatches a plan to keep them apart forever.
Best in Category: Romance
Collage
A girl who works in a museum tries to convince another co-worker that two visitors are flirting. And how does she know? Scientific studies say that there are six signs that show one person’s attraction to another.
Best Cinematography
How the Rose Reaches
Talulah, pregnant with her first born, wrestles with the reality of motherhood as she is confronted with memories of her own, mentally unstable mother.
Best Sound Editing
Tell Everyone Around
When the guys of Jack the Radio hit the road, it seems like just another outing for the Southern roots-rockers. But when a daring heist turns the trip into a getaway, they’re in for white-knuckle ride for the ultimate prize.
People’s Choice Award
Watching.
Filmmaker and upcoming college graduate Sully Styles examines the worst year of his life, his freshman year of college, through the poetry and music he wrote that year.
Best Lead Performance
Karen Carlson as “Julia”
in In a Quiet Room
An elderly woman’s seemingly typical day with her
son and granddaughter takes a surprising turn.
A young man has to deal with the loss of a brother.
Will it bring the family together or tear it apart?
Best Supporting Performance
Will Davenport as “Benji”
in Until Daylight Comes
