2025 Awards

The following awards will be presented at the 2025 Calgary Underground Film Festival. All award winners will be announced post-fest.

AUDIENCE AWARDS

Audience Awards, Feature & Short Films

Audience Award Best Narrative Feature

Audience Award Best Documentary Feature

Audience Award Best Canadian Short

Audience Award Best International Short

JURY AWARDS

Jury Award Best Narrative Feature

Winner

Honourable Mention

Jury Award Best Documentary Feature

Winner

Honourable Mention

Jury Award Best Canadian Short

Winner

Honourable Mention

JURORS

Best Narrative Feature

Justin Langlois
Educator, programmer, film scholar and certified picker (aka hoarder), Justin Henry Langlois has worked for the Fantasia International Film Festival for more than a decade. Langlois’ has done every job imaginable at the fest (including security and milk fetcher) but most famously programmed, headed merchandise and driven everyone everywhere. Moonlighting as a high school English/ Cinema teacher he has tirelessly nagged teenagers for fifteen years and consistently shows them a slew of bizzarro films (none of which can be found on Netflix). Langlois lives in a remote town in Quebec with his beautiful wife and dogs, Beatrice and Mabel.

Ryan Oestreich
Ryan Oestreich is a seasoned professional in the film industry, currently serving as the Managing Director at Music Box Films since February 2022 and as the General Manager of Music Box Theatre since July 2015. Oestreich's career spans notable positions such as Director of Sie FilmCenter at the Denver Film Society from November 2011 to June 2015, where oversight included financial management and programming. Previous roles include General Manager at St. Anthony Main Theatre and Operations Manager at The Film Society, overseeing film festivals and event planning. Oestreich began theri career at AMC Entertainment, focusing on operations and employee development. An academic background includes a BA in Cultural Studies with a focus on Cinema Studies from the University of Minnesota.

Katie Rife
Katie Rife is a freelance writer, critic, and film programmer based in Chicago. She was a writer for The A.V. Club from 2014-2022, and currently writes about film for outlets like Indiewire, Vulture, and RogerEbert.com. She’s served on the juries of Fantastic Fest and the Fantasia Film Festival, and is the shorts programmer for the Overlook Film Festival, a “celebration of all things horror” in New Orleans, LA.

Best Documentary Feature

Jim Brunzell
Jim Brunzell III was born in the '70s, played sports in the '80s, went to school in the '90s, and started working on film festivals in the 2000s. He joined the Twin Cities based music + film festival, Sound Unseen in 2008 as a programmer and became the festival director in 2012. During his tenure the festival has been named "One of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World" (2016 & 2019) by Moviemaker Magazine and "One of the 20 Great First Time Moviemakers Festival" in 2022. In 2023, he joined the LA based film distributor, Dark Star Pictures as Director of Festivals and Theatrical. He has served on numerous film festival juries and is a big sports nerd, especially a die-hard Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Dodgers fan. He is also the father to a seven-year old tabby cat named Bruce.

Alexandra Fredricks
With over 15 years of international experience in film exhibition organizations and festivals in New York, Qatar, Canada, Australia, and The Netherlands; Alexandra Fredricks is enthusiastic about functioning as a bridge between creators, industry, and audiences. She currently handles non-theatrical distribution and international sales at Oscilloscope Laboratories, a Brooklyn-based independent film distribution company founded in 2008 by Adam Yauch. Previously, she held the positions of: Programming + Operations Senior Manager at Metrograph and Film Screening Operations Manager at the Doha Film Institute (DFI). She has served on Festival Juries, been on screening committees for BendFilm Festival, DOC NYC, and the Hamptons International Film Festival, and a talent liaison for New York Film Festival (NYFF).

Bran Ramsey
Bran Ramsey is the Executive Director of Western Arctic Moving Pictures in Yellowknife, NWT. From Ontario, Ramsey studied Arts Admin and Cultural Management at Humber College, and has worked for a myriad of arts organizations and film festivals across Canada including TIFF, Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Dead North, Folk on the Rocks, and Available Light Film Festival.

Best Canadian Short Film

Dara Jade Moats 
Dara Jade Moats is a filmmaker known for her evocative and chilling short films, which have garnered awards such as Best Short Film and Best Blood Bath at festivals across North America. In addition to her work as a writer and film programmer, she has held key industry roles, including Associate Producer at the National Film Board of Canada and Director of Hospitality for the Fantasia International Film Festival. Currently, she lends her expertise to festival programming for the Saskatoon Fantastic Film Festival, Blood in the Snow (Toronto), Calgary Underground Film Festival, Cucalorus (North Carolina), and Available Light Film Festival (Yukon).

Gillian McKercher
Gillian McKercher is a narrative-driven Canadian director. She was a Director resident at the Canadian Film Centre in 2019, and in 2024 was selected to Playback’s "10 To Watch". Most recently, she completed her second feature film as writer/director, LUCKY STAR, which received the CFC/Netflix Development Accelerator. LUCKY STAR was the Closing Gala film at the 2024 Calgary International Film Festival - where she is a two-time Audience Award winner - before premiering at the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival.

Cory Wilson
Cory Wilson has worked in the animation industry for 30 years, with experience at studios such as Chuck Jones Film Productions, DreamWorks Feature Animation, House of Cool, and Nelvana. With a focus on storytelling and visual development, he has enjoyed roles such as storyboard artist, assistant director, and design supervisor. He has a passion for bringing animated projects to life for film and television. In his free time, Cory enjoys creating elaborate Halloween costumes for his wife and himself, and he is currently studying the language of cats to better communicate with his feline housemates.

48-Hour Movie-Making Challenge

Jocelyn Chugg
Jocelyn Chugg is an Alberta-based actor and filmmaker. She jumped into the film industry in 2020 and has since been a part of over 25 short films, 8 feature films, and far too many commercials to count. She fell in love with CUFF in 2022 at the premiere of one of her first ever short film LANDLINE. In 2024, she produced her first short film THE SAINT AND THE BEAR, which premiered at CUFF and went on to have a successful festival run with screenings in Vancouver, Toronto, LA, and more. She recently made her directorial debut with the horror short MABLE MANOR and can't wait to continue exploring this new side of the industry. She’s excited to be back on the CUFF volunteer team and can’t wait to judge the heck out of the 48-hour film submissions! She also has a cat. Her name is Midge, and she likes to go for walks, chase lasers, and bask in the sun.

Robert Grant
Born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Rob Grant cut his teeth in the editing department of studio features including THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, DEADPOOL 2, Spielberg’s THE BFG, and Matt Reeve’s WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES. In between those shows, he wrote and directed multiple features of his own, playing in both dramatic and genre festivals around the world such as Toronto International, Rotterdam, Austin’s Fantastic Fest, Sitges, Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival, and many more. He has directed the horror movie disguised as a buddy comedy MON AMI, the meta-docu-thriller FAKE BLOOD, and the "relationship survival film" HARPOON (CUFF 2019 Audience Award Winner), which sits at 97% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Blending multiple genres and tones, Rob tries to both entertain and subvert audience expectations with each new project. His latest film THIS TOO SHALL PASS (playing CUFF 2025) is a loving take-down of the '80s John Hughes coming-of-age story, with a fresh spin on the oddity and odyssey of the teenage weekend getaway movie.

Becca McKay
Becca McKay is the Programming Manager of the Fantasia International Film Festival, a film critic for CULT Mtl, and a multidisciplinary artist. She is based in Montreal and works directly with the Quebec and Canadian genre film industry, as well as International markets. Becca works with and supports filmmakers from the early stages of their film's inception and development, acquiring funding, festival and market circuits, to their theatrical release. Her personal work revolves around reviving dilapidating physical media.