Film Festival Winners
Best Animated Short
The Promotion

Description
A hapless salaryman navigates the absurd corporate hierarchy of his surreal office space in pursuit of a raise and a promotion.
Director
Jane Steele
Best Student Film
Evil Eye

Description
Director
Mia StarrFrank
Best Animated Feature
Spacetime Chronicles

Description
Spacetime Chronicles is a surreal, dreamlike tale that follows the inner journey of Fred, suspended between reality, dream, and limbo. From a departing airplane to claustrophobic school corridors, from visionary landscapes to cryptic dialogues with Freud — a cat embodying his unconscious — Fred confronts fears, desires, and unresolved memories.
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Director
Stefano Bertelli
Best Narrative Feature
Influenca

Description
Directors
Ian James Milheim
Justine Hope
Best Narrative Short
Potato Potato

Description
Director
Josh Locy
Best Documentary Feature
THEY FIGHT WITH CAMERAS

Description
THEY FIGHT WITH CAMERAS, a 55 min. documentary by Nina Rosenblum and Daniel Allentuck narrated by Liev Schreiber, is a long-overdue tribute to the little-known contribution made by the combat cameramen of the U.S. Army Signal Corps to World War II in Europe and to our collective memory of the conflict. What distinguishes this film from previous documentaries about the war is that rather than furnishing an overview it presents an eyewitness account of the war as seen through the lens of a highly decorated frontline soldier/cameraman who recorded the war in Europe from D-Day to the liberation of Dachau with skill, empathy, and unflinching courage.
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Directors
Nina Rosenblum
Daniel Allentuck
Best Documentary Short
The Spirit We Move With

Description
"The Spirit We Move With" explores the rich history and enduring culture of the Gullah Geechee community on Hilton Head Island. Descendants of enslaved West and Central Africans who gained freedom prior to Emancipation, the Gullah Geechee preserved deep cultural traditions along the coastal Southeast.
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Director
Andrew Maguire
Best Experimental Film
inthebalance…wanting

Description
We say we weigh our choices, but how do we really? Our choices have consequences that define our future, but how can we have all the information we need to make choices when our lives are so limited. Time and death circumscribe the tapestry of our lives, yet we must choose despite such limits on our understanding. Relationships end with a word leaving us to wonder how our lives are buffeted in the resulting storm. Even not deciding is a decision where the tide of life sweeps our inactivity away. Or we act with the best of intentions in the belief that we’ve considered the pros and cons of our actions carefully only to find the consequences to be upheaval and destruction. Time and distance sometimes seem to provide a measure of clarity, but on closer examination they simply offer less ambiguity. As a group we are no different. A company terminates a small number of employees to save the larger number. We drop bombs killing hundreds of thousands to save millions more; and we develop weapons that keep the peace through the threat of their use. inthebalance…wanting asks “are we choosing ‘the good,’ or are we simply accepting the lesser of two evils?” It reminds us that rather than making virtue of such decisions, we should recognize the evil in those choices. Time has a way of finding them wanting in the balance.
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Director
Eric Kunzendorf
Best Ohio Feature
My Name Is Robert Ruark

Description
My Name is Robert Ruark is a heart-wrenching documentary that uncovers the true story of Robert J. Ruark, an Ohio man unjustly convicted of murder and imprisoned for nearly half his life. Told through powerful interviews with legal experts, family members, and justice advocates, the film highlights the human cost of inadequate legal representation that has deprived Robert of his freedom since 2008—and the grassroots movement now underway to see him freed. This is a story of mercy, hope, and justice.
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Director
Si Paros
Best Ohio Short
That Night

Description
Director
Sina Mahdavi
Best Music Video
Sunbeam

Description
What if summer was a drug you could take? That’s the idea that inspired this psychedelic journey of a music video. “Sunbeam” is a summer dream of old San Francisco inspired by the hippie love-ins of the 1960s and the notion that love & friendship could be an act of political resistance. Come along with us, you miss 100% of the trips you don’t take.
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Director
Jacob Skaggs
Best AI film
Maji
