2025 Awards

Best Film
Seppuku: The Sun Goes Down

Best World Film
3 Cold Dishes

Best Documentary
Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus

Best World Documentary
Rubin Hurricane Carter: Forever a Fighter

Impact Award
Fist Bump

Best Director
Terry Dawson for The Rewrite

Best Documentary Director
Nicole London for The Disappearance of Miss Scott

Mira Nair Award for Rising Female Filmmaker
Catherine Masud for A Double Life

Best Actor
Samuel Pickens for Ethered

Best Actress
Sekai Abeni for The Long Game

New York Vision Award
Vanishing: A Love Story

Best Short Narrative
Superman Doesn’t Steal

Best Short Short
KENDRAKE

Best Short Documentary
She Dared to Dream: Ayanna Pressley

Harlem Spotlight (Feature Documentary)
Unbanked

Harlem Spotlight (Short Narrative)
Harlem Fragments

Harlem Spotlight (Short Documentary)
Harlem to Harvard

Uptown Award (Narrative)
The Origin

Uptown Award (Documentary)
42 Years for Nothing

Best Youth Short (Narrative)
.fullstop.

Best Youth Short (Doc)
The Original Harlem Globetrotters

Best Animation
Wednesdays with Gramps

Best Experimental Film
DuEls

Best Music Video
Cut Me Summa Dat Noise

Winning Episode
The Self-Love Act  

Best Virtual Reality
Coded Black

Winning Feature Screenplay
Black Macbeth (Cameron Monaghan)

Winning Short Screenplay
The Last Mediation of Christ (David Schleicher and Mike Bell)

Feature Screenplay Finalists
Homes for Colored People (Julie Loretta Seely)
Rabbit’s Foot Saloon (Phillip W. Fite and Kyle Williams)
Robbery of an Essence (Ericka Smith)
The Devil’s Creed (Cheyenne Smith)
The Elephant and the Donkey (Lonnie Hughes

Short Screenplay Finalists
Code of Hearts (Blair Jones) 
Dopamine & Chopped Cheese (Cruz Caldera)
Fatal Negligence (Juliette Farley)
Pieces of Me (Dominique Marilee and Craig Griffen)