Filmmaker Magazine Presents: 25 New Faces 2025
“Since its debut in 1998, Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces list has annually curated a cross-section of emerging and impressive new independent film talent. Directors, writers, actors, below-the-line—these are filmmakers who have made indelible work in the past year and will go on to shape tomorrow’s film culture. With the magazine’s 29th edition of the list in its current edition, the editors have curated from their work an excitingly diverse selection of shorts spanning horror, drama, comedy and experimental work.” —Filmmaker Editor-In-Chief Scott Macaulay
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Budget Paradise
Directed by LaTajh Simmons-Weaver | 14 mins | 2025
Their easel and paints in tow, Chester roves Oakland in search of a spot to put brush to canvas undisturbed. LaTajh Simmons-Weaver’s vibrant vérité short is a city symphony in miniature and a reflection on an artist’s need for support. -
Sister Salad Days
Directed by Adesola Thomas | 17 mins | 2025
Magical realism ripples through Adesola Thomas’s debut short, a Black Southern gothic tale in which the prospect of an unwanted marriage begets new dimensions in the relationship between two sisters. -
WassupKaylee
Directed by Pepi Ginsberg | 20 mins | 2025
Set in a house of budding TikTok content creators where 17-year-old would-be prankster Kaylee (Devin France) is the newest recruit, Pepi Ginsberg’s extremely online coming-of-age tale is tender but spiked with tension. -
A Bright Summer Day for the Lady Avengers
Directed by Birdy Hung | 12 mins | 2024
Giallo meets Edward Yang in Birdy Wei-Ting Hung’s oneiric, gorgeously photographed short, which filters a schoolgirl’s sexual awakening in 1980s Taiwan through a series of potent, cinema-induced daydreams. -
Video Barn
Directed by Bianca Poletti | 14 mins | 2025
“Just press play!” The mysterious tape found by two best friends at the one remaining rental store in town turns out to be a real video nasty in this stylishly sinister short by Bianca Poletti, channeling David Cronenberg and Wes Craven. -
Ragamuffin
Directed by Kaitlyn Mikayla | 15 mins | 2025
Photographer and first-time director Kaitlyn Mikayla shoots off the starting line with this vérité-inflected tale of a weekend down at the motocross track, during which an adolescent racer questions her sexuality as well as her relationship to both her...
