HONORARY MENTIONS 2025

Trying to make a podcast by Marcin Ratajczyk | By having an AI model analyse a video series previously created with another AI model in podcast form, Marcin Ratajczyk reveals not only the limitations of these supposedly intelligent systems, but also a cliché-ridden rhetoric of art appreciation that is all too often found by human authors. Entertaining and clever, Marcin Ratajczyk succeeds in doing more than just a podcast.
Breaking Waves on the Surface of the Heartbeat Star MACHO 80.7443.1718 by Mona Freudenreich | Where the subject matter can be precisely calculated but cameras cannot (yet) provide images, research relies on simulation. Mona Freudenreich expands the visual and emotional palette of scientific visualization with pop references, found footage, and other sources that are associatively collaged.
You Are the Truck and I am the Deer by Max Ferguson | Max Ferguson’s film is not only a wild yet skilful ride through analogue collage and effects techniques, but is also as emotionally intense as it is visually powerful.
A Weak & Panicked Animal by Jake Starr | Jake Starr's film reminds viewers of the fragile relationship between humans and nature. The hubris of homo sapiens in finally declaring a separate geological era, the Anthropocene, is questioned. If stray wildlife is enough to send people into a panic, one can immediately imagine the powerlessness that true forces of nature would provoke. Cleverly edited from mostly surveillance camera footage, Starr makes a powerful point.

Trying to make podcast
Breaking Waves on the Surface of the Heartbeat Star MACHO
 80.7443.1718
You Are the Truck and I am the Deer
A Weak & Panicked Animal