Sam Cutler-Kreutz and David Cutler-Kreutz’s “Caught” have won the Thegrand Prize for the 2025 Hollyshorts Film Festival and qualifies for this year’s Oscar Awards competition for Best Live-Action Short.
This award is one of four Hollyshorts categories that grant the winners automatic entry into the Oscar Short movie race, provided they meet the categories of other requirements. The other Hollyshorts winners who qualify for Oscars are Jan Saskas “Hurikán”, who won the award as the festival’s best animated card; Andrés Ramírez Pulidos “A Son and a Father”, who won the Best Live Action Award; And Irving Serrano and Victor Rejón’s “Voices from the Army”, who won the Top Documentary Award.
Lee Knight won the best director for “A friend of Dorothy.”
The Hollyshorts Film Festival was founded in 2005. This year showed 427 films shown in Hollywood from August 7 to August 16.
Here is the complete list of winners:
Oscar qualification categories
Grand Prize: “Caught”, Sam Cutler-Kreutz and David Cutler-Kreutz
Best animation: “Hurricane”, Jan Saxony
Best Live -Action: “A Son and a Father”, Andrés Ramírez Pulido
Best Documentary: “Voices from the Army,” Irving Serrano, Victor Rejón
Other categories
Aapi Award: “Mushroom Dad,“ Michael Uchen Lei
Best kinematography: “What disappears”, Mario Lerma and Alex Rapariz
Best comedy: “Susana”, Gerardo Coello Escalante and Amandine Thomas
Best Drama: “Caught”, Sam Cutler-Kreutz-David Cutler-Kreutz
Best director: “A friend of Dorothy”, Lee Knight; Special mention: “A son and father,“ Alexander Farah
Best editing: Say Wuff! “Fabian Podeszwa
Best Horror: “Heirlooms,” Dan Abramovici
Best International: “Painting & Statue”, Freddie Fox
Best Midnight Madness: “Magbug”, Matty Crawford
Best Music Video: “Earth Defender”, will van der Woerd, Jorrower Dozy and Kynan Tegar
Best Podcast: “Moonburn,” Robbie Hyne
Best producer: “Money Talk” “: Tony Mucci (director and producer), Scott Aharoni (producer), Bryan Schmier (producer) and David Mazouz (producer)
Best Sci-Fi: “Second Time”, Jack Howard
Best Special Effects: “EM & Selma Go Griffin -Hunting,“ Alexander Thompson
Best student film: “1:10,” Sinan Taner
Best Thriller: “Plastic Surgery”, Guy Trevellyan
Best TV: “Chasers”, Erin Brown Thomas
Best Web series: “Hasaan hate Portland,“ Mischa Webley
Kodak Best shot on film, 16mm: “Ragamuffin,” Kaitlyn Mikayla
Kodak best shot on film, 35mm: “The singers,” Sam Davis
Kodak honored mention: “Synthesize me”, Bear lady
Latine Award: “Heal Heals”, Lucía G. Romero
LGBTQIA+ AWARD: “Dancing in Tomorrowland,” Jakob Roston
Sagindie Award: “The Advance”, Djiby Kebe
Social Impact Award: “Rise”, Jessica J. Rowlands
Best Sports Drama: “Negro League Nights”, Kyle Sykes
Best Sports Documentary: “It’s on like a pot with necklace,“ Joey Garfield
Top 10 Live Action Short Films finalists
“A son and a father,“ Andrés Ramírez Pulido
“Mercenary,” Pier-Philippe Chevigny
“Ragamuffin,” Kaitlyn Mikayla
“Sit”, André Hayat Saito
“Advance,” Djiby Kebe
“Caught,” Sam Cutler-Kreutz and David Cutler-Kreutz
“One of them,” Mostafa Vaziri
“A friend of Dorothy,” Lee Knight
“Rise,” Jessica J. Rowlands
Script distributions
Isa Story Award – Best feature script: “The Dope Friend”, Matt Ferrucci
Best female script: “The Unraveling”, Samantha Mallory
Best short script Grand Prize – “Mudslide”, Frederik Ehrhardt
