Announcing the 2025 San Diego Asian Film Festival Filmmaker Awards Winners

November 9, 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Carmela Prudencio, media@sdaff.org

SAN DIEGO, November 9, 2025

Announcing the 2025 San Diego Asian Film Festival Filmmaker Awards Winners

November 9, 2025—The 26th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival (SDAFF) proudly announced its 2025 award winners during the Filmmaker Awards Gala. The event took place on November 8, 2025, at the San Diego Marriott Mission Valley in San Diego, where honors were given across multiple categories, celebrating the excellence in Asian and Asian American filmmaking. The awards ceremony honors filmmakers whose creative storytelling amplifies diverse Asian and Asian American voices in cinema. 

Highlights include the Grand Jury Prize, Special Jury Mention, and the George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker Award. An independent jury of filmmakers, curators, critics, and academics selected the winners. In addition to recognizing outstanding films, the event honored key figures in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.

2025 SDAFF Award Winners:

Asian American Film Competition

Grand Jury Prize: Fucktoys – Directed by Annapurna Sriram

Best Documentary Feature: The Gas Station Attendant – Directed by Karla Murthy

Best Narrative Feature: Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued – Directed by Julian Castronovo

Best Documentary Short: We Were the Scenery – Directed by Christopher Radcliff

Best Narrative Short: We Used to Take the Long Way Home – Directed by An Nguyen

Best Experimental Short: Eavesdropping on Jason Sato’s Brothers – Directed by Nguyen Tan Hoang

Special Jury Prize: A Brighter Summer Day for the Lady Avengers – Directed by Birdy Wei-Ting Hung

George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker Award: Lloyd Lee Choi – Director of Lucky Lu

The coveted Audience Award and the Best International Short will be announced at the conclusion of the festival on November 15.

The 2025 SDAFF Asian American Competition Jury

Del Holton, Writer & Programmer (Film Quarterly, Screen Slate, Flash Art, Elephant Magazine, XTRA, Frontiers, and the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art)

Chris Jesu Lee, Writer & Lawyer (Current Affairs, The Cleveland Review of Books, The Believer, The Metropolitan Review, Salieri Redemption.)

Celeste Wong, Lifelong Film and Performing Arts Enthusiast & Programmer (Tribeca, Palm Springs ShortFest, Atlanta Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, and San Francisco DocFest)

The 2025 SDAFF International Short Film Jury

Oggs Cruz, Writer & Lawyer (The Philippine New Wave, Cinemalaya, Cinema One, and Quezon City Film Festival)

Sean Gilman, Film Critic (The Chinese Cinema, MUBI Notebook, InReview Online, and the Criterion Current)

Chanel Kong, Curator of Moving Image at Hong Kong’s M+ Museum