2025 Jury & Audience Awards

Documentary Jury Award Winners

MADE IN ETHIOPIA - feature film

"Made in Ethiopia" puts a human face on the promises and challenges of rapid industrialization and globalization.The Jury Award for Documentary is presented for its engaging, nuanced characters, layered storytelling, skillful editing, and unparalleled access. The film offers a vivid portrayal of everyday lives, while thoughtfully exploring how the global economy and local politics affect communities. - Documentary Jury

WELCOME HOME FRECKLES - short film

For its brave examination and confrontation of intergenerational trauma, the unflinching Welcome Home Freckles is awarded the Jury Award for Documentary Short.

Narrative Jury Award Winners

SUNSHINE - Feature film

The winning film impressed the jury with the clarity of its storytelling, its potent sense of place, and an extraordinary lead performance by a striking new talent. The energetic heart of the film keeps us gripped throughout, drawing us into the world of our lead’s complex dilemma while persuasively reminding us that life is so often about the possibilities we extract from seemingly impossible situations. The Austin Asian American Film Festival Narrative Feature Jury Award goes to SUNSHINE.

GLORIA - short film

The winner of the Narrative Short Jury prize is a richly emotional experience grounded in a magnetic central performance that reveals a tenacious heart and a generosity of spirit that proved irresistible. It’s a film about connection, finding purpose and the transformative potential of learning.  With a strong visual style that features a luminous colour palette and an eye for the beauty in the mundane, the film is a reminder that getting older doesn’t have to mean slowing down.  The winner of the Narrative Short Jury Price is GLORIA, by Kim Blanck

Special Jury Mentions

YOUR TOUCH MAKES OTHERS INVISIBLE - Documentary Feature | Creative Vision

For its arresting imagery, unforgettable indictment of power, and its unique approach to community storytelling, the Special Jury Mention for Creative Vision goes to Rajee Samarasinghe (Summer ah sing huh) and Kalinga Deshapriya for "Your Touch Makes Others Invisible."

THIRD ACT - Documentary Feature | Legacy

For its commitment to exploring cultural and personal identity over four generations, the Special Jury Mention for Legacy and Impact goes to Third Act and the Nakamura Family.

THE FLOWERS STAND SILENTLY, WITNESSING - DOCUMENTARY SHORT | DIRECTING

For its unique use of archival footage and haunting voiceover, this film reclaims Palestine’s past and present. The Special Jury Mention for Directing goes to Theo Panagopoulos for The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing.

PAYING FOR IT - NARRATIVE FEATURE | WRITING

This special award recognizes a heartfelt, fearless film that takes an uncommonly nonjudgmental approach to modern relationships and the things that can both compromise and enrich them. Whether exploring polyamory, sex work, or the simple act of allowing your partner to be who they are, this is a film that models the kind of compassion and clear-eyed curiosity we could all learn from. The Special Jury Mention goes to Sook-Yin Lee for PAYING FOR IT.

ROOFTOP LEMPICKA - Narrative Short | Story

This award recognizes a refreshing and unique take on the coming-of-age genre. Told with remarkable authenticity, the story presents a layered portrayal of two women through the eyes of a young girl. While we view them from her perspective, we are also invited to see these women more fully - their hardships, their hopes, and the brief moments where they describe the other with fairness and grace. For its tenderness, subtlety, and complexity, the Special Jury Mention for Story goes to Rooftop Lempicka. 

THE LAST DAY - Narrative Short | ENSEMBLE CAST

In this impactful story set over a single night that is a tragic end for some and routine for others, we are drawn in and invited to empathize with each character on screen through performances that are nuanced, riveting, and on the mark. The Special Jury Mention for Ensemble Cast goes to The Last Day.

HAVE I SWALLOWED YOUR DREAMS - Narrative Short | Vision

This film offered a moving and impressionistic portrait of the immigrant experience. Through poetic visuals and an emotionally raw lens, it explored the quiet selflessness and deep sacrifice carried by those who leave home to create a future for the next generation. The filmmaker captured this story not through dialogue or exposition, but through feeling. We were invited to sit inside memory, grief, and the kind of love that often goes unspoken.

For its evocative approach and powerful artistic vision, the Special Jury Mention for Vision goes to Have I Swallowed Your Dreams.

Audience Awards

Documentary Feature - MADE IN ETHIOPIA

Documentary Short - AMMA’S PRIDE

Narrative Feature - SUNSHINE

Narrative Short - GLORIA

2025 AAAFF Jury

For each film festival, AAAFF assembles a Narrative & Documentary Jury of peers from the film and entertainment industry to select awards.

Categories include jury selections for feature and short films.

Narrative Jury

Maria Mealla

Maria Mealla was born and raised in La Paz, Bolivia,on a healthy balance of cultural folklore and Catholic superstition. She later moved to Austin, Texas, where she studied Theater Arts before landing in the Bay Area, where she taught herself filmmaking through work-trade.

Maria is a 2022 Sidewalk Narrative Lab Fellow. Her short film, LA MACANA, won HBO's 2023 Pa'lante Filmmaker Competition. BODY SHOP, her latest project in development, was selected to participate in the 2023 Tribeca Untold Stories competition and the 2024 NALIP Latino Media Market Accelerator. She is a Latino Public Broadcasting grantee for her short JUANA PELOS, which is currently screening at festivals. Most recently, Maria was selected as one of three fellows for COLECTIVO, an inaugural Latinx filmmaker initiative created by Tribeca in partnership with the Miranda Family Fund to bring to life Las Hijas de Rosalía, which will premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. Maria’s stories exist in the magical realism and coming-of-age genres. She strives to bring more films from a Latinx perspective to the big screen

Jeremiah Abraham

Jeremiah Abraham is founder and CEO of Tremendous Communications. With over 20 years in the entertainment industry, he has helped shape Hollywood’s evolving narrative, working on iconic franchises—including Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, and DC—and serving as part of the marketing team of Crazy Rich Asians. Beyond PR and marketing, he also co-produced acclaimed independent films and was a Broadway co-producer on Here Lies Love, the first Filipino-led musical on Broadway. In 2024, he was named one of Variety’s 8 APIs Up Next in Entertainment, part of the inaugural class of rising industry leaders.

Jim kolmar

Based in Texas, born and raised in Wales, Jim is an independent film consultant and curator, primarily for South by Southwest Film & TV Festival (SXSW), where he has programmed international and documentary features since 2009. Other curatorial work includes Curaçao International Film Festival, Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival, consulting for Adelaide Film Festival, and custom film packages for KINO! Germany Now (Goethe Institute/German Film Office), and PANORAMICA for PLAY Acción Cultural in Spain. Every month Jim curates and hosts the public-facing KINO! Film Salon in partnership with Telescope Film.

Jim has consulted and participated on numerous international festival juries, panels and committees including Cannes Docs, EFM, FICCALI, Locarno Industry Academy (Bogotá), REC Festival, and Sarajevo Film Festival. He has also mentored Latin American students for London Film School, and guest lectured for University of Texas Department of Radio, Television and Film.

Documentary Jury

Amy Bench

Amy is a Sundance-supported, Emmy award-winning, and Oscar-shortlisted director and cinematographer. Her work explores immigration/migration narratives, communication access for the Deaf, reproductive justice, and LBGTQ+ rights, and involves both animation and live action. Her short animated documentary "More Than I Want to Remember" (2022, Paramount+) won an NAACP Image Award, a Social Impact Media (SIMA) Award, an Emmy, and was shortlisted for an Oscar in 2023. "More Than I Want to Remember" won Best Animated Short at the Tribeca Film Festival, Best International Short Documentary at Hot Docs, and is distributed by MTV Documentary Films. Her most recent short documentary, “Breaking Silence,” (2023, Independent Lens) won both the Jury Award and the Audience Award at SXSW, and the Impact Award at DOC NYC. 

She is currently developing her first feature documentary, “Walker,” with support from the Sundance Documentary Fund and Catapult. She is a 2024-25 fellow with the Likewise Director’s Fellowship. As a cinematographer, Amy collaborates closely with directors, often working in the cinema verité tradition. She was the cinematographer on the Emmy award-winning short “Trans in America: Texas Strong” (2019, Conde Nast). “Texas Strong” grew into the feature “Mama Bears, (2022, Independent Lens). Amy has collaborated as a cinematographer on “Zurawski v Texas” (2024, Hidden Light Productions), “Every Body” (2023, Focus Features/NBC), and “You Are What You Eat” (2023, Netflix), among others.

kenya gillespie

Kenya Gillespie is a Japanese American filmmaker and composer based in Austin, Texas. His narrative short film JEREMIAH received its international premiere at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival (Cinéfondation) where it was nominated for the short film Queer Palm. It won Best Score at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival and was nominated for the Jury Prize for Best American Short Film at the Champs Élysées Film Festival. He is a 2021 Sundance Institute Uprise Grant finalist for his most recent narrative short GIVE, and he's been a recipient of the Austin Film Society Grant for GIVE, JEREMIAH, and his narrative short MICHELLE. His films have screened at numerous festivals around the world.

Kenya received an MFA in Film & Media Production from the University of Texas at Austin, an MM in Music Composition from Rice University and a BA in Music from Yale University. He is currently a lecturer at Texas State University and is in post-production on a feature documentary REMEDY.