The 31st Slamdance Film Festival announced the winners of their annual Sparky Awards in Audience and Jury categories for 2025.
The festival also announced the recipient of their AGBO Fellowship from Slamdance alumni Joe and Anthony Russo, a curated Acting Award, and the second annual Summer Chastant Episodic Award. All winners were announced during the in-person awards ceremony on February 26th at the DGA Theater Complex in Los Angeles, CA.
A celebration of emerging filmmaking talent from around the world, this year’s lineup consisted of 146 films – 21 of which are World Premiere features. The fully accessible lineup included 33 features, 104 shorts, and five episodics. For the second year in a row, Slamdance continues to champion female filmmakers, with women directing 55% of this year’s lineup – marking a powerful shift in independent filmmaking. The full Slamdance lineup is still available online on the Slamdance Channel through March 7th.
The AGBO Fellowship was awarded to Margot Budzyna. A friendship is threatened by an unexpected culprit: baseball practice in her narrative short Deuce.
This year’s lineup was chosen from nearly 10,000 submissions, 1,795 of which were features. All films selected in the Narrative Features and Documentary Features competition categories are directorial debuts without U.S. distribution, with budgets of less than $1 million USD – a feature that has been unique to the festival since its founding in 1995. This year’s lineup consisted of titles from over 20 countries including Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Greece, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Uganda, and the UK (United Kingdom) among others.
In addition to the Sparky’s, sponsored prizes for award winners were provided by Pessah Law Group, Boyd Chastant, and AGBO.
A full list of winners is below:
GRAND JURY AWARDS – FEATURES
Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize: Gamma Rays (Henry Bernadet, Canada)
Honorable Mention: Alice-Heart (Mike Macera, United States)
Documentary Feature Grand Jury Prize:American Theater (Nicholas Clark and Dylan Frederick, United States)
Honorable Mention: Twin Fences (Yana Osman, Russia/Ukraine)
Breakouts Feature Grand Jury Prize: Silent Trees (Agnieszka Zwiefka, Poland)
Honorable Mention: In The Mouth (Cory Santilli, United States)
Episodes Grand Jury Prize: Serjan Bratan (Alisher Utev, Kazakhstan)
Honorable Mention: I Need Your Love (Walker Kalan, United States)
GRAND JURY AWARDS – UNSTOPPABLE
Unstoppable Grand Jury Prize: Racewalkers (Phil Moniz and Kevin Claydon, Canada)
Honorable Mention: Disposable Humanity (Cameron S. Mitchell, Austria/Germany)
JURY AWARDS – 6XTY
6XTY Jury Award: Vermin Beings (Kat Messing, United States)
Honorable Mention: Red Light, Green Light (Corey Grispo, United States)
JURY AWARDS – SHORTS
Narrative Short Grand Jury Prize: Bita Joon (Sara Boutorabi, United States)
Honorable Mention: Contours (Aisha Amin, United States)
Documentary Short Grand Jury Prize: Hooked (Glen Fulthrope, UK)
Honorable Mention: Only if the Baby Cries (Shadab Farooq, India)
Experimental Shorts Grand Jury Prize:Your Mailbox is Full (Allie Viti, United States)
Honorable Mention: One Rehearses, The Other Doesn’t (Jessica Hankey, United States)
Animated Shorts Grand Jury Prize: A Night at the Rest Area (Saki Muramoto, Japan )
Honorable Mention: Never Fall in Love (Lucy Sao Wa Iao and Angela En-Yu Lao, China/Macao)
FESTIVAL WIDE AWARDS:
The AGBO Fellowship, presented by Joe and Anthony Russo, Award Winner: Margot Budzyna director of Deuce(United States)
Summer Chastant Episodic Award: Becca Schall and Jessica Taylor directors of Victorian Ladies (United States)
Slamdance Acting Award: Lissa Carandang-Sweeney for Alice-Heart(United States)George Starks Spirit of Slamdance Award Winner: Ben Kjar of Standout: The Ben Kjar Story (United States)
AUDIENCE
Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature: Under the Burning Sun (Xun Xie, United States)
Audience Award for Documentary Feature: Coroner To The Stars (Ben Hethcoat and Keita Ideno, United States/Portugal)
Audience Award for Unstoppable: Disposable Humanity (Cameron S. Mitchell, Austria/Germany)
