Student Film Festival FINE CUT Now Accepting Submissions From California Film School Students With Call For 2025 Entries
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Chelsea Grosbeck
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Los Angeles, Calif. – April 14, 2025 – PBS SoCal, Southern California's flagship PBS station, announced today that the annual FINE CUT Festival of Films is now accepting submissions for the 2025 season from film school students across the state of California. Every year, the festival encourages promising filmmakers who are currently enrolled in or recently graduated from California film schools to submit short films (25 minutes or less) in Documentary, Animation and Narrative categories. Finalists will be included in a series of broadcast episodes airing locally and streaming this fall while winners will receive valuable prize packages. Following the broadcast, each episode of FINE CUT will stream at pbssocal.org/finecut and on the free PBS app. The deadline for students to submit short films for consideration is June 6, 2025 on the platform filmfreeway.com/FineCut.
The FINE CUT Festival of Films showcases local student filmmaking with funding made possible by The Bridges / Larson Foundation. In 2024, the four winners received a variety of prize packages offering useful filmmaking resources like rental equipment, animation software subscriptions, design tools and more, valued to be worth more than $65,000 – the highest number in FINE CUT history. One of the winners received the prestigious Jack Larson Southern California Student Filmmaker Award commemorating FINE CUT founder Jack Larson's commitment to fostering new generations of filmmakers in California.
Top films submitted for the FINE CUT Festival of Films were evaluated by a select panel of judges in 2024 consisting of esteemed entertainment industry experts. The 2024 judges included (in alphabetical order) Director/Producer David Altrogge (“Clemente,” “Neat”), Owner/Principal of JFG Consulting LLC/Studio Executive Jill Gilbert (“Epic Games,” “Moonbug,” “Supercell,” “The British Film Commission”), Writer Skander Halim (“Ghosts,” “Murphy Brown,” “Pretty Persuasion”), Director Rachel Goldberg (“Agatha All Along,” “Gen V,” Fox’s Tideline Productions “The BM”), Director/Writer Tanya Hamilton (“Night Catches Us,” “Good Country People”), Story Artist/Creator/Actor Michael Herrera (“Bye Bye Bunny: A Looney Tunes Musical,” “Zootopia Plus”), Writer/Director/Showrunner Elizabeth Ito (Netflix’s “City of Ghosts,” Cartoon Network’s “Welcome to My Life,” “Adventure Time”), Director/Producer Shaun Kadlec (“Possible Selves,” “Born This Way”), Actor/Organizer/Artist Support Manager Gabriella Ortega Ricketts (“Rebel Hearts,” “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” “Aum: The Cult at the End of the World”) and Actor/Producer Bellamy Young (“Scandal,” “Prodigal Son,” “The Other Black Girl”).
The FINE CUT program also includes a fall awards ceremony/screening event that last year was hosted by Variety Television Editor Michael Schneider and his Variety colleague Senior Entertainment Writer Angelique Jackson. The event took place just prior to the series’ broadcast premiere where honorees in each of the three categories and The Jack Larson Award recipient were awarded their prizes.
Following the ceremony, Warner Bros. Entertainment hosted participating students and young filmmakers from across Southern California at an event where students had the chance to customize their experience in a roundtable-style workshop that offered valuable guidance and the opportunity to ask mentors their questions directly. In partnership with First Entertainment, presentations and panels included mentors discussing relevant topics such as “A Financial Guide to the Entertainment Industry” and “Portfolio Reviews & Filmmaking Networking.” By design, the small-group format provided the next generation of filmmakers with one-on-one opportunities to engage with various experts in the film, television, animation and documentary fields.
RULES: Student filmmakers must be at least 18 years of age and currently enrolled or have been enrolled in a California School January 2023 to present. Films completed prior to January 1, 2023, are not eligible for consideration for FINE CUT. Films that have been submitted for FINE CUT consideration in previous years are not eligible for submission for 2025 FINE CUT consideration. All short films selected by the expert judging panel will be part of one of a series of broadcast episodes and all accepted shorts are eligible for awards in the Competition. Short Films must have a total running time of 25 minutes or less, including credits. Read the full rules and regulations at FilmFreeway.com.
This festival is a tribute to Fine Cut founder, Jack Larson. In the late 1990s, the actor, librettist, screenwriter and producer had the idea of creating a student film series that would provide talented students with the much-needed opportunity to have their short films selected for television broadcast. Larson understood how difficult it was for young filmmakers to get broad exposure for their work because, typically, student work is only seen at special screenings and film festivals. Larson thought that public television was an excellent platform for providing critical visibility to emerging filmmakers. PBS SoCal shares Larson’s enthusiasm for showcasing local student filmmaking and 26 years later, FINE CUT continues to be a flagship program for Southern California’s flagship PBS organization.
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Funding for Fine Cut is generously provided by The Bridges/Larson Foundation.
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