The deadline of the Sony Future Filmmaker Awards 2025 is just around the corner - make sure you enter before 12 December 2024! In the meantime, we’re pleased to share that the esteemed panel of judges tasked with selecting the best short films has just been revealed. From award-winning filmmakers behind iconic films such as Juno and Jennifer’s Body to industry-leading voices who have worked on films such as Where the Crawdads Sing and The Devil Wears Prada, get to know the people choosing this year’s winners.
Justin Chadwick, award-winning theater, television and film director and Chair of the Jury said:
“Last year’s shortlist selection illuminated the talent of thirty filmmakers who transformed their visions into captivating stories, bringing them into the heart of moviemaking in Los Angeles where they gained invaluable awareness of our ever-evolving industry. With this year’s competition, we are looking for projects that hold the potential not only to change the lives of these filmmakers but also to provoke and compel us as viewers to alter our outlooks. I am grateful to return for the third year as Chair and I speak for the jury when I say how excited we are to discover the creativity and passion which the 2025 competition will surely bring.”
Justin Chadwick is an award-winning British theater, television and film director. He is best known for critically acclaimed films including the Academy Award ®, BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013), the AFI and IFTA nominated The Other Boleyn Girl (2008); Tulip Fever (2017) and The First Grader (2010). His films have won numerous awards including the Audience Award at Durban International Film Festival, the Audience Prize for Best Film at Doha Tribeca Film Festival, both Best Director’s Choice and Audience Choice Awards at the Sedona Film Festival, and Best Feature Film at the Palm Beach Film Festival 2010. His award-winning short films include Boy (2011), Shakespeare Shorts (1996) and Family Style (1993). His recent credits include the Disney+ series Shardlake (2024), the upcoming film Sierra Madre starring Kiefer Sutherland, and Amazon’s Fear, currently in production.
Minhal Baig is a filmmaker. Her latest feature, We Grown Now, about two boys growing up in a Cabrini-Green high rise, premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, awarded the TIFF Changemaker Award and Audience Award at Chicago International Film Festival and received Best Picture, Best Cinematography and Best Editing nominations for the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards. Sony Pictures Classics releases the film theatrically in Spring 2024. Her previous feature, Hala, about a Pakistani-American Muslim teenager uncovering a secret about her family, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was released by Apple. She had a two-year overall writing-producing deal in television with Amazon, is a 2022 Sundance Momentum Fellow and a graduate of the 2022 WGA Showrunner Training Program. She also served as co-executive producer on Criminal, story editor on BoJack Horseman and staff writer on Peabody-award winning half-hour comedy Ramy. Her work has been supported by fellowships/residencies at Yaddo and The Black List.
Elizabeth Gabler is the President of 3000 Pictures, a multi-media division at Sony Pictures Entertainment, which she formed in 2019. This company represents a partnership between Sony Pictures, HarperCollins Publishers, and what was formerly Fox 2000. 3000 Pictures focuses primarily on literary adaptations, both fiction and non-fiction for theatrical and streaming feature films, as well as television. The first film under the 3000 banner was the adaptation of the publishing phenomenon, Where the Crawdads Sing, which grossed more than $140 million globally. An adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover for Sony and Netflix premiered on the streamer and remained in the Global Top 10 for three weeks in a row, reaching over 60 million hours viewed. Upcoming for the label are Klara and the Sun, directed by Academy Award ® winner Taika Waititi, starring Jenna Ortega and Academy Award ® nominee Amy Adams, and based on Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel of the same name and People We Meet on Vacation, 3000 Pictures and Netflix’s feature adaptation of the New York Times bestselling novel by Emily Henry – the first of her novels to go into production – directed by Brett Haley, starring Tom Blyth and Emily Bader. Gabler began her career at International Creative Management before joining Columbia Pictures as a Creative Executive. In 1999, Gabler became President of Fox 2000 Pictures, a division of Twentieth Century Fox which shepherded such films as The Devil Wears Prada, The Hate U Give, Hidden Figures, and Life of Pi. Prior to this, Gabler also held the positions of Vice President of Production at United Artists and Senior Vice President at Twentieth Century Fox.
Jason Reitman is an Academy Award ®-nominated filmmaker who most recently directed Saturday Night, a film he co-wrote with Gil Kenan. Reitman made his feature film debut with the 2006 Sundance hit Thank You For Smoking for which he won best screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards. He notably earned Academy Award ® nominations for directing Juno and Up in the Air, the latter of which earned Reitman a WGA Award and BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay. Reitman has collaborated with screenwriter Diablo Cody on four critically acclaimed films, including Young Adult, Tully, and Jennifer’s Body. As a producer, Reitman oversaw four seasons of the Golden Globe nominated Hulu comedy series Casual. He also produced the Academy Award-winning film Whiplash and Jean-Marc Vallee's Demolition. In 2010, Reitman co-created the Live Read series with Elvis Mitchell, which ran for five seasons at LACMA where he also sat as an artist-in-residence. In 2020, during the height of the COVID pandemic, Reitman created and directed the Home Movie Princess Bride, raising over a million dollars for World Central Kitchen. In 2021, Reitman directed and co-wrote Ghostbusters: Afterlife with Gil Kenan, and in 2023, produced and co-wrote its sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. In early 2024, Reitman assembled 35 prominent film directors in order to save the Westwood Village Theater.
The Sony Future Filmmaker Awards close on 12 December 2024. Don’t miss the opportunity to enter your short film and join a major program providing exceptional opportunities for creators and filmmakers. Become one of the shortlisted filmmakers flown to the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California, to attend an awards ceremony and a bespoke industry immersion program comprising exclusive workshops led by Sony Pictures executives, panel discussions, tours, screenings and Q&As.