2025 CDJ Student Grant Finalists

Two misfit teens will burn the world down before they lose another friend, so when their best friend decides to die, they go looking for answers. What they find is worse: their world is a 1990s TV Show and its creator is feeding on their suffering.

Working at the crossroads of Western, psychological drama, horror, and rape-and-revenge genres, "Moonflower" asks a pressing question: can revenge ever truly heal the wounds left by trauma? Following two women raped by the same man, Moonflower follows a dangerous yet cathartic alliance set in America’s forgotten West.

Short Film Synopsis: Alone in the suffocating quiet of his surrogate sister’s apartment, fifteen-year-old Analu clings desperately to memories of his lost loved one, Iolani, the one person who made him feel seen. The night becomes a battleground of haunting flashbacks and quiet suffering, as Analu teeters between holding on and letting go. Malu, his surrogate sister, fights to reach the part of him still holding on. Falling is a raw, intimate journey through trauma, where the weight of the past threatens to eclipse the connections that remain.

After his boss commits suicide, an assistant working at a health insurance company becomes an unwitting new tribute to a clan of sadomasochistic investors.

A para athlete fights for a spot on her high school's swim team, battling ableism and her own grief as her sister tries out alongside her.

On a family trip to South Korea, Juna, a young American girl, is abruptly left in the lone care of her grandmother in the countryside. The two slowly form a fragile bond, beyond generational and language barriers.

The host of a live true crime podcast gets a dark call from a huge fan.

HOST is an intense and restrained thriller, taking place in a single location in the present day. Written and directed by Erik Avilez, and produced by Victor Brasil Salgado and Erica Meyer, the film explores the cost of our entertainment, and the consequences that we try to avoid.

Through the bodies of women and queer community, who have loved, lived, and long sustained New York's house scene, We Embody traces what gets passed down through movement and what has been left out of the circle.

After being told he may have only months to live, a father who has long suppressed his emotions escapes the hospital and sets out on a journey to reunite with his sister. As the unspoken inner worlds within his family begin to emerge through dreamlike encounters, he confronts the fear and distance he has long buried, and for the first time, questions what it truly means to live before time runs out.