Williamsburg International Film & Music Competition

2025 Film & Music Competitions

We received many 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

Evil Insight

Directed by Don Close and Fiore DeRosa
runner-up

Whiskey Dixie & The Big Wet Country

Directed by Amanda Richards
INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE FEATURE FILM
winner

Eugene O'Neil - The First Man

Directed by Hardeep Giani
runner-up

Pégame

Directed by Dylan Verrechia
US DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM COMPETITION
winner

Triumph of Hope

Directed by Steve Mason
runner-up

Power, Not Persuasion: The Susan Sandler Legacy

Directed by Chelsea Hernandez
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION
winner

Best in the World

Directed by Clint Arthur
runner-up

Nocturno

Directed by Isabel Rivero Vila
US NARRATIVE SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner

The Tip

Directed by Peter Vazquez
runner-up

Clone Juice

Directed by Kevin Varghese
INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner

Sisters

Directed by Songnia Xiao
runner-up

Memories of the Future

Directed by Keishi Suenaga
US DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner

Harmony of the Azores

Directed by Maria T. Luskay and Lou Guarneri
runner-up

Janke

Directed by Jordan Hendrickson
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner

Kumeyaay Land

Directed by Dylan Verrechia
runner-up

Trauma: The New Epidemic

Directed by Matthew Jacobson and Backer Hamada
STUDENT NARRATIVE SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner

Capsule

Directed by Xiaoying Qu
runner-up

Shy Boy's Virtual Sex Dreams

Directed by G. Gotham Smith
STUDENT DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM COMPETITION
winner

Nuclear Resurgence

Directed by Joseph Machosky
runner-up

Crossing Paths

Directed by Sean Dong
ANIMATED FILM COMPETITION
winner

Where the Tide Whispers

Directed by Michelle Mullin
runner-up

Unafraid

Directed by Lauren Wolk and Jackie Reeves
MUSIC VIDEO COMPETITION - ENGLISH
winner

The Symptones - MRI

Directed by Matt Collings
runner-up

Cali Tucker - Country Couture

Directed by Dustin J Robison
MUSIC VIDEO COMPETITION - INTERNATIONAL
winner

Mould - Wheeze

Directed by Martyn Thomas
runner-up

LVX Machina - Thug Deluxe

Directed by Cristian Balint and Béla Baptiste
TV/WEB EPISODE COMPETITION
winner

Nesting

Directed by Allana Harkin
runner-up

Breaking Strongholds

Directed by Jake Allen
FILM/TV/WEB TRAILER COMPETITION
winner

Custom Made: The Royal Council

Directed by Aaron Sean Umanoff
runner-up

Apocalypse Death Party

Directed by Russ Emanuel
COMMERCIAL COMPETITION
winner

Eternal Blue

Directed by Freddie Connor
runner-up

Break the Silence

Directed by Dax Phelan
SOUNDTRACK COMPETITION
winner

Infinity

by Stacey Chan
runner-up

The Clockmaker

by Arthur Moore
ORIGINAL SONG COMPETITION
winner

I See In You

by Samantha Rae and Anthony John Dellisola
runner-up

When We're Rich

by Michelle Rose, Austin Hellar, Jake Neumer and Paula Winger

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!

String Lights
VP Boyle
As a brutal snowstorm brings the country to a standstill, a group of wildly imperfect strangers collide across cities and timelines—grappling with purpose, grief, and reinvention—until they discover that what feels like the end of the road might just be the start of something brighter.
Vengeance Valley
Purnesh Konathala
A small-town milk delivery boy discovers a grisly murder scene at an old mansion where five men have been killed by what a witness describes as "ghosts." As the new sheriff investigates, he uncovers a dark history of sexual assault, political corruption, and a revenge plot three years in the making.
South Lands
K.E. Lanning
After a catastrophic global Melt, an engineer turned pioneer races to stake a claim on an ice-free Antarctica, but the UN Land Rush of 2204 turns into a battle against ruthless, armed competitors and a corrupt oligarch determined to control this new land.
Honorable Mentions
(in alphabetical order by title)
Borderline Justice
Lynn Elliott
A judge has to choose between professional promotion, and the love of a woman determined to open his eyes to the politically charged world of power, money, illegals, drugs, and borderline justice.
Hearts in Cellophane
Thomas Paul Rossi
The Stasny family has their hearts wrapped in cellophane. What happens when they are unwrapped is a story of first love, last love and all the joy and pain in between.
Knowing
Victoria Perry
When an aspiring lawyer and the black sheep of a family of Coney Island Psychics is asked, by her boss, to represent the client her mother crossed, her career and any dream of separating from her community is put in jeopardy.
Madison Square Garden
Katarzyna Müller
In the middle of a divorce, a working actor needs his wife just one last time.
Precursor
Steve Brown
When a series of natural disasters and unnatural phenomena wreak havoc across the globe, a group of unlikely allies must come together to confront a mysterious faction determined to engineer the very end of the world.
The Fourth Psalm
John Martins III
Dire consequences ensue when two Catholic priests at a New Mexico parish clash during the 1980s Sanctuary Movement, endangering the lives of three innocent Central American refugees.
Wheels of Hope
Tim Vogel
When a snowstorm strands a traveling band in the small town of Silver Pine, a fiery lead singer and a wheelchair-using mechanic must navigate personal insecurities and the threat of a hostile takeover of the town's cherished mobility company, all while saving the annual Christmas festival and discovering the true meaning of independence and love.
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