2024 Film & Music Competitions
We received a record number of entries in multiple categories. It is a difficult task reviewing all these projects and selecting two winners from each category but that is what a competition is all about. Here are this year’s winners and runners-up.
US NARRATIVE FEATURE FILM
winner
Nelly Don ~ The Musical Movie
Directed by Terence Michael O'Malley
runner-up
High Hopes: The Misadventures of Danny Valentino
Directed by Dennis Cabrini
INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE FEATURE FILM
winner
Parastree
Directed by Suraj Pandey
runner-up
La Pura Vida
Directed by Dylan Verrechia
US DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM COMPETITION
winner
Calamity and Mercy
Directed by Daniel W Smith
runner-up
Guardians of the Flame
Directed by Daniel Wolff
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION
winner
How We Have Loved
Directed by Gustav Ã…gerstrand
runner-up
Olde Tyme Radio
Directed by Charles Langford
US NARRATIVE SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner
Sparkle
Directed by Kristen Wolf
runner-up
My Rockstar
Directed by Stephanie Williams and Graham Northrup
INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner
Lambeth Lights
Directed by Luca Bertoluzzi
runner-up
Purple Sky
Directed by Akisai M
US DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner
Native Roots
Directed by Sue Williams
runner-up
The Girl from the Village: A Story of Hope
Directed by Billy Surges
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner
#WAY_LamaTenzing
Directed by Alan Rexroth
runner-up
Ñuñuyachiy: Breastfeeding with Affection and Care
Directed by Jose Miguel Soriano and Ricardo Macian
STUDENT NARRATIVE SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner
After Roe Falls
Directed by Jessica Orcsik
runner-up
For Her
Directed by Lilinaz Hakimi
STUDENT DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner
School By Any Means
Directed by Ellis Chung
runner-up
Guiding Light
Directed by India Anne Mitchell
ANIMATED FILM COMPETITION
winner
RadioCATive
Directed by Damaris Alvarez
runner-up
Lighthouse
Directed by Rook Carey
MUSIC VIDEO COMPETITION - ENGLISH
winner
Spoiler Alert
Directed by Robert Goc
runner-up
Elevator
Directed by Joe Chilcott
MUSIC VIDEO COMPETITION - INTERNATIONAL
winner
We`re Going To Hell
Directed by Al Buchanan
runner-up
Eastern Boytoy
Directed by Botond Balogh and Gábor Mihály Kővári
TV/WEB EPISODE COMPETITION
winner
Joey Skaggs: The Solomon Project
Directed by Judy Drosd and Joey Skaggs
runner-up
Insects in the City
Directed by Mark Polish
FILM/TV/WEB TRAILER COMPETITION
winner
Kill Two Birds
Directed by Marjoe Aguiling
runner-up
It's Not You, It's Me
Directed by Anthony L Williams
COMMERCIAL COMPETITION
winner
S.A.M.
Directed by Larry Schwartz
runner-up
Wokmon
Directed by Glen Lee
SOUNDTRACK COMPETITION
winner
Elli and Her Monster Team
by Amaury Laurent Bernier
runner-up
Frankenstein
by Eric Sirota
ORIGINAL SONG COMPETITION
winner
Claire
by Dennis Comino and Kelsey Berrington
runner-up
Is That You?
by Debra Gussin and Rik Howard
SCREENPLAY COMPETITION
Judging the works of so many talented writers is truly hard. In the end our judges have to assign numeric scores in multiple categories to each screenplay and these scores are tallied up. So you may miss being included in the list of winners below by very few points but this is how competitions work.
Congratulations to this year’s winners!
Uncle Franco's Birthday Suit
Lynn H. Elliott
A young man’s relatives are determined to reunite their nephew with his teenage love. To succeed, they must overcome a scheming coworker, and his gold-digging sister.
Sparrow's Last Run
Thomas H Magee
When a beautiful elite athlete is found mutilated on a winter park trail, Virginia Beach detective, Sean McGlone has lots of questions, but few clues into her mysterious murder.
Why were the recently conceived dual embryos cut from the pregnant runner’s body as she lay dying?
Why did the DNA analysis of the young mother’s womb indicate that she was not the mother at all, but rather a surrogate for new life?
Why was the victim’s husband, an authority on sports genetic research, less interested in his younger wife’s murder than in the loss of his unborn sons?
Why do the athletes at his remote mountain training facility all share Aryan features?
Why are all his COVID secluded female athletes pregnant?
All are questions detective McGlone must answer. Enlisting the help of his department’s bright young criminologist, together they embark on a journey following a genetic trail into a distant past. A secret buried in the Nazi Lebensborn programs seeking the creation of a master race.
Battle Buddies
Myrta Vida
In the chaos during – and after – Operation Enduring Freedom, two women soldiers deepen their already decades-long friendship, as they navigate through war injuries, Military Sexual Trauma, and PTSD.
Honorable Mentions
(in alphabetical order by title)
A Tale of Two Cities in 4 Episodes
Michael O'Rourke
Dr. Manette, falsely imprisoned in the Bastille for 18 years, is released to the custody of his daughter, Lucie Manette. On the ferry from Calais to Dover, the French emigrant Charles Darnay, a young man with secret ties to French aristocracy, befriends them. Set up to be tried for treason against the English Crown by his uncle, the Marquis St Evremonde of France, Darnay is pronounced innocent based on his remarkable likeness to Sydney Carton, his dissolute lawyer. In his fervor to face off with his uncle by renouncing the privileges and abuses of the class to which he was born, Darnay unwittingly springs a trap set by the vengeful Madame Defarge, a trap with grave consequences for himself and the Manettes.
Aktion T-4
John Martins III
In Nazi Germany, a Lutheran bishop, a Catholic deacon, and a deaf mother fight to save her epileptic son's life from Hitler's euthanasia program, "Aktion T-4."
Chief
Myrton W Running Wolf
A semi-autobiographical tale inspired by a famous novel. Set in north-central Oregon on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation (the Wasco tribe) in the early/mid-1900s, Myles Bromden fights against his people's most insidious enemy - an unseen powerful force that lives beneath the earth and in the hearts of men.
Comrade Kolkin is Dead
Laura Kelber
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Miriam, a blacklisted journalist, now a loving wife and mother, reluctantly allows her estranged father, a loyal member of the Communist Party, to come stay at her home. She spars with him for several nights about politics, family and the very nature of Truth. Finally, she's had enough of him and wants to kick him out. But suddenly he dies under mysterious circumstances. Her 5-year-old daughter is the only witness and insists that a "spaceman" killed her grandfather. As her life starts to unravel, Miriam has to decide where the political ends and the personal starts, forcing her into hard decisions, all in a desperate attempt to get at the truth of her father's death.
Let the Boy Sing
Gunnar Garrett
John Dennis Smith, a fifteen-year-old kid with a voice as unmistakable as Elvis Presley’s, explodes onto the country music scene, by mistakenly walking onto the Lawrence Welk show, taking the mic and showing the world what he’s got. With just the one song, John won over not only the crowd, but Lawrence Welk himself, enough to convince Mr. Welk to sign John to a contract to be a part of this show. By the time he turned nineteen John was ready for the big time and headed off to Nashville. Once there, his voice and charisma propelled him to the top, allowing him to sign a record deal with Adonda Records, and cutting several albums that hit the top fifty on the charts. Having been adopted at birth, John has always wondered about his biological parents, and is now ready to meet them. After meeting with his birth mother for the first time, she applauds his voice and singing career, saying he may even be better than his father. John’s world is about to be turned upside down, but at the same time shed some light on the reason he is the way he is. Who is that man you ask? The King of Rock and Roll himself... Elvis Presley
SCRUB
K.Page Stuart Valdes
Messy divorcee, Jackie, is a high functioning addict who barely knows what day it is but still manages to care for his patients as an ER doctor. In a story about trauma bonding, bad parenting, and transcendence Jackie must reconcile his aversion to honest intimacy before he loses connection to everyone he loves.