This year marked an important milestone for Slamdance, the beloved festival for indie films with budgets under $1 million. Since its founding as an alternative to Sundance in 1995, Slamdance had also been held in Park City, Utah. But on its 30th anniversary, Slamdance relocated to a new home, Los Angeles.

As CEO Peter Baxter explained, the change will make the festival more affordable for everyone and easier to navigate for people with physical disabilities.

Over 140 films were screened beginning on Thursday, February 20, 2025, mainly at the Landmark Sunset and Quixote West Hollywood. The Sparky Awards were presented on Wednesday, February 26. Following the week of in-person activities, the festival’s virtual segment concluded on Friday, March 7.

We cannot cover all the screenings and events from the program, so we selected some highlights. After introducing you to the feature film juries, we’ll tell you about winners of some major awards.

Here are our highlights from Slamdance 2025!

Feature Film Juries

Except for three Audience Awards, the Sparky Awards are given by one of four juries. Three of them are responsible for considering features of various types. The fourth jury judges the Narrative, Animated & Experimental Shorts, including submissions to 6xty, a new section for 60-second films.

Episode, Breakouts and Narrative Features Jury

The members of the Episode, Breakouts and Narrative Features Jury were Ravit Markus, David Henry Gerson, and Omar S. Kamara.

Markus won the Unstoppable Audience Award at Slamdance 2023 as co-director of American Pot Story: Oaksterdam, a documentary about the Oakland activists who spearheaded the movement to legalize cannabis.

Gerson directed Ultra Violet for Sixteen Minutes, a short about an actress who worked with Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol, and acted in Matthew Lessner’s Automatic at Sea, a feature about a disastrous vacation on a private island.

Kamara won the Best Narrative Feature Audience Award at Slamdance 2024 for African Giants, a film about an aspiring Hollywood actor who feels misunderstood by his Sierra Leonean family.

Unstoppable Jury

The members of the Unstoppable Jury – which chooses the winners of awards for films by and about people with disabilities – were Cynthia Garcia Williams, Ashley Eakin, and Kelli McNeil-Yellen.

After making successful shorts, Williams recently directed her first feature film, a comedy about two couples who make a rather surprising discovery. Its provocative title is We’re Not Married?

Eakin assisted Jon M. Chu during the production of Crazy Rich Asians and subsequently co-wrote and directed Forgive Us Our Trespasses, a short about a young boy targeted by the Nazis because of his disability.

McNeil-Yellen is the author of the children’s book Sleepy Toes and the Bitch List-approved script Mommy Porn.

Documentary Features & Shorts Jury

The members of the Documentary Features & Shorts Jury were Jillian Corsie, Olivia Kuan, and Julio Palacio.

Corsie directed Trichster, a documentary about compulsive hair pulling (trichotillomania), and she edited Vincent DeLuca’s Desert Angel, a documentary about a Mexican immigrant who searches for missing persons at the U.S. border.

Kuan has extensive experience as a cinematographer and directed The Herricanes, a SXSW award winner about a women’s team of professional football players.

Palacio won prizes at Slamdance and numerous other festivals for his documentary short Makayla’s Voice: A Letter to the World. Makayla, a teen with autism, learns to speak with the help of a letter board.

Narrative, Animated & Experimental Shorts Jury

The members of the Narrative, Animated & Experimental Shorts Jury were Aaron David Harris, Hugo de Sousa, and Wendy McColm.

Harris won the George Starks Spirit of Slamdance Award in 2024 for his animated film H-Squad: The Interactive Experience.

De Sousa has acted in Robert G. Putka’s We Used to Know Each Other, a comedy about partners moving in together, and Mylissa Fitzsimmons’ Everything in the End, a sci film about existential angst during the end times.

McColm won the Spirit of Slamdance Award in 2018 for Birds Without Feathers, a suspenseful film about four misfits stuck in a rut.

Films

As Slamdance reported when it announced the official selection, it accepted only 146 films out of almost 10,000 submissions. Since the acceptance rate was under 2%, all films in the lineup stood out from the pack! You can read about them all, but we’ll cover winners of some especially prestigious awards.

Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature

The Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature went to Henry Bernadet’s Gamma Rays. Bernadet previously co-wrote and co-directed West of Pluto, described by its tag line as a “mosaic” of Québécois teenage experiences. Possessing a similar mosaic-like quality, Gamma Rays follows the disparate journeys of three young people. As the jury wrote, it offers “a fantastic window into the immigrant youth in Montreal.”

Grand Jury Award for Unstoppable Feature

The Grand Jury Award for Unstoppable Feature went to Phil Moniz and Kevin Claydon’s Racewalkers. They have collaborated on two shorts and a television series called Short Term Sentence, and Claydon has an acting resume that includes The Expanse. In Racewalkers, the co-directors also star as Will (Moniz) and Matt (Claydon), struggling athletes who want to defeat a national champion. The jury appreciated its “joyful injection of humor and humanity.” Racewalking has found its Rocky!

Grand Jury Award for Documentary Feature

The Grand Jury Award for Documentary Feature went to Nicholas Clark and Dylan Frederick’s American Theater. Clark worked on the camera crew for Look Who’s Back, and Frederick acted in episodes of Poker Face and Adult Ed. Their documentary follows Brian Clowdus, former director of Atlanta’s Serenbe Playhouse, as he protests cancel culture by staging a musical about the Salem witch trials. You’ll be even more intrigued upon reading the jury’s commendation: “From the very first shot we were immersed in the story.”

Grand Jury Award for Breakout Feature

The Grand Jury Award for Breakout Feature went to Agnieszka Zwiefka’s Silent Trees. Zwiefka’s documentaries about women have covered subjects from a teenage soldier in the Sri Lankan civil war (Scars) to an 80-year-old devotee of Warsaw’s nightlife (Vika!). Silent Trees shows how a teenage girl copes with her mother’s death after their Kurdish family flees Iraq for Poland. The jury admired the film for “intimate poetic moments that cultivate a quiet commentary on the struggles of refugees.”

AGBO Fellowship

Finally, we extend our congratulations to Margot Budzyna, winner of this year’s AGBO Fellowship. For Deuce, a short about children’s baseball, Budzyna earned a mentorship with Anthony Russo and Joe Russo.

The Russo brothers are directors of blockbusters including Avengers: Endgame and co-founders of AGBO, the production studio behind the 2023 Best Picture Oscar® winner, Everything Everywhere All at Once. They showed their first film, Pieces, at Slamdance in 1997. To honor where they got their start, the Russos have awarded the AGBO Fellowship at Slamdance each year since 2018.

Congratulations, and Thank You!

As you can begin to see from our overview, the 31st Slamdance Film Festival was a great success. Congratulations to the award winners and all filmmakers featured at Slamdance 2025!

We would also like to congratulate Peter Baxter and all the Slamdance organizers, who have worked tirelessly to support indie filmmakers for 30 years. Thank you for everything you do! We wish Slamdance a bright future in LA.