The South by Southwest Movie & TV Pageant introduced its award winners for the 2025 pageant, with “Loopy Wealthy Asians” author Amy Wang‘s movie “Slanted” successful the highest prize within the Narrative Function Competitors.
IndieWire’s evaluate referred to as Wang’s physique horror highschool movie a mixture of “Imply Women” and “The Substance.” The movie is searching for U.S. distribution.
The narrative characteristic jury, which included IndieWire’s personal Govt Editor Ryan Lattanzio, additionally gave Annapurna Sriram’s “Fucktoys” the Particular Jury Award for a Multi-Hyphenate, whereas Amanda Peet received the Efficiency award for her work in Matthew Shear’s debut movie “Fantasy Life.” Benjamin Flaherty’s movie “Shuffle” received the highest Documentary prize.
Neon additionally awarded a particular prize to director Grace Glowicki of “Lifeless Lover,” which simply picked up distribution out of SXSW after it initially premiered at Sundance.
Take a look at the complete record of SXSW winners beneath:
The SXSW 2025 Movie & TV Pageant Award Winners:
FEATURE FILM GRAND JURY AWARDS
NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION
Thanks to our sponsor Kickstarter, the funding and launch platform for unbiased creators and innovators, for supporting the Narrative Function Competitors Movie Screening part.
Winner: “Slanted” directed by Amy Wang
“This unflinching satirical thriller examines racial identification in a daring and skin-tingling new method. That includes simmering performances by the solid, this movie is each particular to the fractured identification of Asian People and universally relatable in its theme of desperately needing to belong. The director’s vulnerability in mining her private expertise mixed along with her delicate and daring filmmaking create a haunting piece that lingers lengthy after the credit roll.”
Particular Jury Award for a Multi-Hyphenate: Annapurna Sriram, “Fucktoys”
“Annapurna Sriram is a visionary drive, a uncommon artist whose work is as daring as it’s singular. On this dynamic and revelatory comedic fantasy, she delivers an audacious cinematic expertise that defies conference. Because the movie’s director, author, government producer, and star, she masterfully wields the facility of storytelling, immersing audiences in a world that feels each wildly authentic and deeply resonant.”
Particular Jury Award for Efficiency: Amanda Peet, “Fantasy Life”
“Ever an actor of unsparing comedian canniness, Amanda Peet brilliantly portrays a flailing actress with a stalled-out profession who will get a renewed joie de vivre due to a manny, performed by author/director Matthew Shear. Her frankness in regards to the perils and pitfalls of the leisure trade are on full show in a efficiency that boldly takes on a meta high quality whereas reminding us of why Peet has been so nice all alongside.”
Narrative Function Competitors Jury: Clayton Davis, Senior Awards Editor, Selection;
Rebecca Ford, Senior Awards Correspondent, Self-importance Truthful; Ryan Lattanzio, Govt Editor, IndieWire
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION
Winner: “Shuffle” directed by Benjamin Flaherty
“Wrought with measured model and humanity, this quietly searing exposé of exploitation and fraud within the dependancy remedy trade is a deeply affecting work of cinematic memoir and alarm. The director illuminates the insidiousness of the profit-driven, billion-dollar restoration enterprise whilst he brings compassion and urgency to his topics, whose candid revelations are as heartbreaking as they’re hopeful.”
Particular Jury Award: “The Python Hunt” directed by Xander Robin
“The Python Hunt burrows deep into an interesting pocket of American life. This gorgeously shot, surprisingly touching movie continually subverts expectations whereas revealing the soul of those colourful contestants. With humor and compassion, Robin pushes previous clichés: We’ll by no means consider the much-mocked media picture of ‘Florida Man’ in the identical method.”
Particular Jury Award: Remaining Native directed by Paige Bethmann
“Paige Bethmann magnetically examines North America’s abusive Indian boarding faculty applications via the eyes of her impassioned topic, Kutoven Stevens. The director’s vivid use of montage, searing archival imagery, and Stevens’s poetic narration builds a strong narrative round him. Stevens’ love of operating brings him nearer to his great-grandfather’s legacy whereas permitting him to make use of his voice as a drive for good in his neighborhood.”
Documentary Function Competitors Jury: Tim Grierson, Senior U.S. Critic, Display screen Worldwide; Aisha Harris, tradition critic and co-host of NPR’s “Pop Tradition Glad Hour”; Jen Yamato, freelance journalist and movie critic, beforehand employees author, Los Angeles Occasions
SHORT FILM COMPETITION GRAND JURY AWARDS Offered by Vimeo
Thanks to our Quick Movie Jury Award sponsor, Vimeo: the world’s most progressive video expertise platform for creators and enterprises.
NARRATIVE SHORT COMPETITION
Winner: One Day This Child directed by Alexander Farah
“An intimate portrait that illustrates the needs and burdens we feature, providing an evocative glimpse into the lifetime of an Afghan Canadian. It’s each beautiful and soulful, effortlessly weaving within the cultural imprint of Islamic immigrant upbringing into the material of on a regular basis queer experiences. The director is a timeless visionary who’s reshaping the journey of what it means to say and settle for one’s personal identification.”
Particular Jury Award: I’m The Most Racist Individual I Know directed by Leela Varghese
“Charming, modern, and polished. This movie is a lyrical research of magnificence and identification that balances the burden of internalized disgrace with the frivolity of a burgeoning romance. The Particular Jury Award celebrates the director’s confidence of their examination of intersectional points via the curious lens of two queer South Asian girls.”
Narrative Shorts Competitors Jury: Amy Beecroft, Verve Ventures; Jaycie Luo, MRC; Sara Rastogi, EVP, Growth, HOORAE
DOCUMENTARY SHORT COMPETITION
Winner: On the lookout for a Donkey directed by Juan Vicente Manrique
“A subversive movie that speaks to bigger geopolitical realities. It tells a stranger-than-fiction story with endurance. The distinctive craft of this movie – from the narrative strategy to the cinematography – leads to a courageous and quiet movie that speaks volumes.”
Particular Jury Award: Welcome House Freckles directed by Huiju Park
“The movie creates a scripted narrative aesthetic via a deeply private documentary. The director composes every shot with clear intention, so her imaginative and prescient seeps via each body.”
Documentary Shorts Competitors Jury: Chloe Gbai, Authentic Documentary Movies, Netflix; Corinne Gilliard Fisher, producer and improvement government; Amanda Spain, Head of Documentary, EverWonder Studio
ANIMATED SHORTS COMPETITION
Winner: Retirement Plan directed by John Kelly
“A deeply resonant and well-crafted movie, it’s a masterful mix of appeal, humor, and existential reflection. With outstanding storytelling finesse, the filmmaker succeeds in remodeling a seemingly atypical premise right into a profound meditation on life, desires, and the passage of time. It captures a common eager for achievement and explores heavy themes with levity and heat, making it each deeply private and universally relatable.”
Particular Jury Award: My Great Life directed by Calleen Koh
“A throw down, relentless pageant jam positive to evoke laughter whereas packing an emotional punch. The central character’s household dynamic supplies agency grounding and relatability, releasing the filmmaker to make more and more daring, and hilarious, selections demonstrating the absurd lengths they’ll go to for only one. extra. day away from all of it. Skillful animation and sophisticated textures masterfully help the work’s central message.”
Animated Shorts Competitors Jury: Brandon Bui, Affiliate Inventive Govt at Walt Disney Animation Studios; Silvia Olivas, two-time EMMY® AWARD Successful Author; Adam Zehner, Funimation/Crunchyroll’s Japanese partnerships supervisor
MIDNIGHT SHORTS COMPETITION
Winner: Abdomen Bug directed by Matty Crawford
“A movie as wealthy in character improvement and theme as it’s in technical prowess and execution. It was a contemporary tackle a father or mother coping with their little one spreading their wings and flourishing. A brilliantly-gut-wrenching efficiency by its lead and a seamless mix of sensible and visible impact leads to a really polished piece that everybody concerned ought to be immensely proud to have birthed.”
Particular Jury Award: Whitch directed by Hoku Uchiyama
“Crafting an efficient brief is extremely tough; doing so in beneath 5 minutes is extraordinary. This movie skillfully blends horror and humor and does so with out losing a second. The movie’s use of acquainted motifs lulls the viewers right into a false sense of understanding what’s to return earlier than successfully pulling the rug out from beneath them a number of instances, whereas nonetheless delivering an entire story and evocative performances.”
Midnight Shorts Competitors Jury: Alayna Glasthal, Inventive Govt, Atomic Monster; Emily Gotto,SVP of Acquisitions and Productions at AMC Networks Shudder; David Lawson, Jr’s options embrace Decision, One thing In The Grime, Synchronic, The Infinite, and She Dies Tomorrow.
TEXAS SHORTS COMPETITION
Winner: Harvester directed by Charlie Schwan
“This tightly targeted horror movie proves that nice issues are available in small packages. Deftly commingling the tiniest, unheralded story particulars with massive, “discuss on the display” ranges of horror and well-judged creature work, this movie completely delivers on the promise of the style during which it lives, and goes that further step additional to grow to be one thing really particular.”
Particular Jury Award: Newbies directed by Kimiko Matsuda-Lawrence and Megan Trufant Tillman
“This can be a movie that shimmers with magnificence, but additionally delivers highly effective emotions of heartbreak and unhappiness, creating an expertise that so completely embodies visible storytelling that it nearly eradicates the necessity for phrases. The characters invite you into their internal landscapes, inserting you on the heart of their richly shot and superbly carried out emotional drama.”
Texas Shorts Competitors Jury: Megan Creydt, Texas Month-to-month government producer for TV, movie, and podcasts; James Faust, Dallas Movie Society Inventive Director; Michael Garcia, Producer and Govt concerned in a variety of highly-acclaimed, award-winning tv collection.
MUSIC VIDEO COMPETITION
Winner: BIJI – ‘ZIGIDI’ directed by Maceo Frost
“A excessive gear, zip-zooming piece of visible whiplash, this music video wowed us with its epic Kurdish setting and wholly unpredictable framework. The drifting and stunt work could be very spectacular, but it surely reaches subsequent degree heights with its narrative design and cultural reflections (to not point out the eagle cam). Concurrently playful and resonant, it’s a testomony to the grand potential of the music video medium.”
Particular Jury Award: Sarah Klang – ‘Different Women’ directed by Rose Bush and Kirsten Bode
“Some of the tough accomplishments of short-form filmmaking is making a convincing character arc. This video provides us an trustworthy, dynamic, and finally shocking have a look at its central character, all in lower than three and a half minutes. The spectacular shorthand is marked by poignant course and a pitch-perfect efficiency. Most characteristic movies can’t pull off characters this wealthy.”
Music Video Competitors Jury: Britt Daniel, co-foundeder Spoon; Alexis Hodoyán-Gastélum, music editor, Remezcla; Bryan Younce, producer and Govt Vice President of Video & Content material Manufacturing, Columbia Information
INDEPENDENT TV PILOT COMPETITION
Winner: F*ckups Nameless from Showrunner Joe Tierney and director Kat Whalen
“Instantly pulls you in, constructing pressure with care, whereas the teenager leads ship uncooked, compelling performances. Their struggles really feel actual and cope with laborious hitting themes, however the present holds again simply sufficient, drawing us into the quiet complexities of their characters. The filmmaker subtly reveals the deeper fractures inside this therapeutic boarding faculty. This pilot retains its viewers hooked – leaving us unsettled, questioning, and wanting to see what’s subsequent.”
Particular Jury Award: Denim from showrunner and director Tedra Wilson
“This pilot defies conference, providing a documentary expertise that feels each intimate and avant-garde. A putting collage of stylized voices, every contributing to a bigger narrative about identification, creativity, and cultural evolution. Curated with sharp style and unwavering confidence, the filmmaker constructs a world the place artistry isn’t simply noticed however felt — the place each body, soundbite, and visible texture is deliberately positioned to problem, encourage, and provoke.”
TV Pilot Competitors Jury: Hannah Bang, filmmaker, with a love for tales about imperfect individuals; Claire Brooks,inventive producer, author, and advocate for rising filmmakers; Channing Godfrey Peoples, filmmaker, Miss Juneteenth
POSTER DESIGN COMPETITION
Winner: Decision: A Cinephonic Rhapsody for the Soul
Designers: the movie’s director Scott Berman, Anthony Francisco Schepperd, and Micah Buzan
“This design caught our consideration instantly. We love the excessive saturation of shade, consideration to element, and print high quality. It’s a should see in particular person to expertise the multidimensional depth of shade and texture. This piece takes you on a mesmerizing journey. A real murals!”
Particular Jury Award: Superb Summer time
Designer: Patryk Hardziej
“This poster artwork stood aside due to its daring design, use of unfavourable house, and putting imagery. We love how you may have two completely different experiences with the paintings, up shut and at a distance. Provocative work.”
Poster Design Competitors Jury: Phoebe Joynt (FEEBEE), artist, designer, and muralist; Yen Tan, graphic designer and filmmaker; Zuzu, visible artist and artistic entrepreneur.
XR EXPERIENCE COMPETITION
Agog Immersive Affect Award
Thanks to our Sponsor: Designed to encourage creators and changemakers to make use of XR for good, the Agog Immersive Affect Award acknowledges initiatives that assist us all think about and work towards a extra simply and sustainable world.
Winner: Within the Present of Being created by Cameron Kostopoulos
Jury Award Winner: Reflections of Little Purple Dot created by Chloé Lee
“Deceptively humble and pleasant, this open-world documentary invitations us to freely discover a rustic in transition. Guided by a daring new expertise in XR storytelling, it confronts us with the vulnerability of on a regular basis life, evoking a common sense of place.”
Particular Jury Award: Proof As If Proof Have been Wanted created by Ting Tong Chang, Matt Adams
“Spoiler Alert! The Particular Jury Award Winner made us really feel misplaced, annoyed and disconnected from one another. What began as a sluggish burn, become an sudden connection and dance between house, story, expertise and human habits.”
XR Expertise Competitors Jury: Christina Lee Storm, award-winning producer and senior leisure government; Caspar Sonnen, Head of New Media IDFA DocLab; Diana Williams, CEO & Co-founder of Kinetic Vitality Leisure
SXSW Particular Awards
Redbreast Unhidden
Redbreast—the world’s most awarded single pot nonetheless Irish whiskey—is devoted to celebrating the joys of discovery, whether or not it’s an unforgettable movie or that first clean sip of Redbreast. In collaboration with BAFTA winner, Golden Globes and SAG nominee Andrew Scott, Redbreast Irish Whiskey is championing daring and authentic storytelling via the Redbreast Unhidden Award, an honour recognising an unbiased brief filmmaker whose work brings contemporary views to the display. Chosen by Andrew Scott, this award goals to have fun probably the most thrilling expertise in brief movie on the SXSW Movie & TV Pageant.
Redbreast Unhidden Award
Winner: Transient Somebodies directed by Andy Reid, produced by Alessandra Sconza
“I’m honoured to award Director Andy Reid for his movie, Transient Somebodies. What I beloved about this movie is how, in a really brief house of time, it drew a selected tone to a narrative that we don’t usually see explored on display. It’s extremely private but additionally assured, witty, with a lovely aesthetic. The director managed to make a really explicit expertise very accessible and intriguing. However as anyone who’s frolicked on movie units, I assumed it was very genuine. The director made it attention-grabbing and managed to seize the expertise in a method that was true to life. I’m very excited to see what Andy does subsequent.” – Andrew Scott.
Vimeo Employees Decide Award
Thanks to our Jury Award sponsor, Vimeo: the world’s most progressive video expertise platform for creators and enterprises.
Vimeo Employees Decide Award
Winner: Acquainted directed by Marco Novoa
“This fascinating narrative weaves collectively themes of queerness, connection, and located household with a touch of blood-sucking drag queens. In a storytelling panorama the place vampire tales usually recycle acquainted tropes, this putting movie provides a contemporary strategy with equal components darkness and coronary heart.”
SXSW Better of Texas Award
Offered to a characteristic movie world premiering at SXSW that was shot primarily in Texas or directed by a present resident of Texas. This 12 months’s award goes to The Gap Fact and Nothing Butt, captures the chaotic genius and psychedelic legacy of Texas’s most uncompromising musical outlaws with unflinching honesty and visible audacity.
SXSW Better of Texas Award
Winner: Butthole Surfers: The Gap Fact and Nothing Butt directed by Tom Stern
Janet Pierson Champion Award introduced by Indiewire
To honor Janet Pierson, Director Emeritus of the SXSW Movie & TV Pageant after 15 years of management, a prize was created in 2023 referred to as the Janet Pierson Champion Award. As a part of IndieWire’s dedication to elevating Movie & TV creators, IndieWire is proud to current the Janet Pierson Champion Award to Lindsey Dryden.
Janet Pierson Champion Award
Winner: Lindsey Dryden
“This 12 months’s winner exemplifies the spirit of a real movie champion via her spectacular physique of labor spanning award-winning productions like Unrest and Trans In America, whereas concurrently advocating for higher inclusion via her management with FWD-Doc and dedication to incapacity illustration. Her multifaceted profession as a director, producer, and advocate demonstrates distinctive creativity and resilience, making her a strong voice for marginalized communities and an influential catalyst for change inside the broader unbiased movie ecosystem worldwide.”
NEON Auteur Award for Uncompromising Visionary within the Visions Part
As an award-winning champion of not simply movies, however filmmakers and movie festivals, NEON is a guiding drive in unbiased cinema.
Winner: Grace Glowicki, director, author, and Star, Lifeless Lover
“This 12 months’s Auteur Award goes to a tremendously authentic movie that would solely come from this explicit filmmaker’s curious, inventive and thrilling thoughts. We merely can not think about anybody else pulling it off — and even being daring sufficient to strive it within the first place.”
In 2022 SXSW introduced Nicolas Cage with the 40 Years of Huge Expertise Award. This 12 months we created one other particular award, for an unforgettable technique efficiency.
Howl of Fame Award
Winner: Indy from Good Boy, directed by Ben Leonberg and produced by Kari Fischer, his people
“Via a uniquely genuine perspective within the horror style, this goodest boy delivers a efficiency that’s each pure and chilling. His responses to unseen phenomena remodel on a regular basis home areas into realms of suspense and terror. Indy and his people remind us even when darkness threatens to eat us, a devoted canine’s love is aware of no bounds.”
