The Oscar qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival has just wrapped up it’s 20th year, and with it comes the big reveal of this year’s winners. With hundreds of films screened at this year’s festivities, there was a ton of amazing titles to choose from. After last night’s announcement of the nominees from the festivities, it’s now time to show off who has been selected as the top films from this year’s showings.
Oscar-qualifying categories:
BEST SHORT FILM GRAND PRIZE
“Amplified,” Diana Naser
BEST LIVE ACTION
“Anuja,” Adam J. Graves
BEST ANIMATION
“Wander to Wonder,” Nina Gantz
BEST DOCUMENTARY
“The Final Copy of Ilon Specht,” Ben Proudfoot
Other categories:
BEST DIRECTOR
Kate Hollowell, “Say Hi After You Die”
BEST DRAMA
“Motherland,” Jasmin Mozaffari
BEST COMEDY
“Deep Tish,” Dave Paige
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
“Corpse Fishing,” Pip White
SCRIPT COMPASS GENRE STORY AWARD
“A Family Guide to Hunting,” Zao Wang
BEST HORROR
“Bill,” Emily Dhue
BEST EDITING
“The Cockroach,” Patrick Lawrence
BEST INTERNATIONAL
“The Masterpiece,” Àlex Lora
LATINX AWARD
“The Ballad of Tita and the Machines,” Miguel Angel Caballero
BEST LGBTQIA+
“Sister Wives,” Louisa Connolly-Burnham
BEST MIDNIGHT MADNESS
“Dream Creep,” Carlos A.F. Lopez
BEST MUSIC VIDEO
“Fishtank,” Wendi Tang
BEST PRODUCER
“Tea,” Gabriella Piazza
BEST SAGINDIE
“Azi,” Montana Mann
BEST SPORTS
“Black Mark,” Jaren Hayman
BEST SCI-FI
“Paeonia,” Pedro Xavier Buson
KODAK BEST SHOT ON FILM, 35MM
“Clodagh,” Portia A. Buckley
KODAK BEST SHOT ON FILM, 16MM
“Deep in My Heart is a Song,” Jonathan Pickett
KODAK NEST SHOT ON FILM, HONORABLE MENTION
“Mort,” Giselle Bonilla
SOCIAL IMPACT AWARD
“His Mother,” Maia Jo Scalia
BEST THRILLER
“Cameron,” Sam Freedman
BEST STUDENT FILM
“Fishmonger,” Neil Ferron
BEST TV
“Loft and Found,” Pete O’Hare
BEST VFX
“Fireline,” Robin Takao D’Oench
BEST WEB SERIES
“Dick Bunny,” Katie Locke O’Brien
COTRINI BEST RISING DIRECTOR
Bella Thorne
HOLLYSHORTS HONORABLE MENTION
“Play Date,” Laura Campbell, Amberlee Colson
BEST FEMALE SCREENPLAY
“Babka,” Serena Dykman
BEST TV SCREENPLAY
“Something Weird About Winston,” Wilandrea Blair
BEST SHORT SCREENPLAY GRAND PRIZE
“Oops My Dad is a Duck,” Shaun Radecki
BEST FEATURE SCREENPLAY
“Crabs in a Mother F*cking Bucket,” Kari Mote
ISA STORY AWARD
“Empty House,” Sheida Sheikha
BEST PODCAST
“Gladstone Girls,” Rachel Shenton and Chris Overton
This year’s sponsors for the festival included 88th Street, All The Smoke, Alley Cat Pizza, Alta Global Media, American Cinematheque, Anillos Mezcal, Bangin Buns, Barbancourt Rhum, BeCine, Be The Light Creatives, Carousel Restaurant, Color Space Finishing, Company 3, Cotrini Skin, CV, Documentary Channel, Dulce Vida Spirits, Easter Seals, Empress Gin, Festival Formula, Generational Wealth Wines, Hawks Hill Ranch, Higginbotham, Hive₂O, Hokey Pokey LA, Kevork Law, Kodak, Las Vegas Wine Tours, Mediawan, Monarch Wine, Nettwerk Music Group, Ovation Hollywood, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Paix Sur Terre, Panavision, Parakeet Café, Prescription Vineyards, Priest Ranch, Ravella Tequila, SAGIndie, Seattle Film Summit, Smartwater, Sparkling Ice, The Aster, Vibes Snacks, Vitaminwater, and zenWTR.
We’ll likely be hearing more from the four films that qualified for the upcoming Academy Awards, as they will now be in the mix for the honor in their respective categories. For all of our other winners, while they might not be bound for the Oscars, they should be incredibly proud of all the time and effort that they put into their films, and we should all be celebrating these talented filmmakers for what they were able to achieve. A big thanks and congratulations to all of our winners, nominees and selections for this years HollyShorts! We’ll be counting down the days until we can do this all again in 2025.
Be sure to keep an eye out here for more news, reviews, interviews and announcements! For those looking to check out our amazing winners, the films can be seen exclusively on BitPix.
BITPIX TV News 