2025
2025 Films
A Fine and Private Place : Sarah Kaitlyn Pearce
A Story Of Fish : Rusty Enger
Apology Ghost : Brian Padian
Baxter Bi-rite : Allison Inman, Jace Freeman, and Sean Clark
Beefmastor Inn : Zach Strum
Brought To You By Satan : Holly Laurent
…But I’ll Be Back Before You Are Done : Federico Trasparente Montaresi
Call My Sister, Last Year : Dylan R Simon
Chairs : Avner Pinchover
Checkmate : Nichole Lim
CITY BIRD : Sunny Rae Keller
Cliff : Jess Anderson
Climate Control : Sarah Lasley
Clovers : Jacob Hatley and Tom Vickers
DREAMER : Balca Elif Sagmanli
Ephemera : Cici Clancy
The Future : Greg Sharp
The Genie : Enricka M.H
Getting To Know You Again : Desirée Tolchin
Gioia : Nixon Singa
Glorious Times : Stan
Gnomes : Ruwan Heggelman
Guadalupe : David Guillermo Barba
Hang On, Little Tomato : Asya Hildenbrand, Shalyn Grow
Hubbards : Kevin Ralston
The Invisible Crown : Amelia Kramer
John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office : Michael Almereyda, Courtney Stephens
KIA SUMMER SALES EVENT : Brendan Walter
kid with a pearl earring : Abigail Holland
Living Reality : Philip Thompson
Lollygag : Tij D'oyen
Midsummer : Masha Vlasova
The Motherfucker's Birthday : Saif Alsaegh
Nashville Famous : Seth Pomeroy
Nathan Loves Ricky Martin : Steven Arriagada
The Never Ending Passion Boys Crew at Captain Daniel David's on the Coast : Jeffrey Sundin
Night Warriors : Bill E Mitchell
The Nose Knows: Foreignness and Fortune in China : Bill Callahan, Kieran Hanson
Only one glove : Fotis Zampetakis
Panic Attack! : Eileen O'Meara
Pauline : Annie Gallup
The Phalanx : Benjamin Balcom
PONYTAILHEAD : Brent Michal
SARDINE : Andrea Dratch
Self-Tape : Conway Preston
Shelly Belly : Stephanie Mishelle Ard
So Far All Good : $ECK
spot healing : Ryan Woodring
The Split : Lindsay Kent, Lauren Kent
STATELESS : Seyed Mohamadhosein Hoseini
The Streetlight : Sophia Parella
Sulfur : Karen Akerman, Miguel Seabra Lopes
Sunshine Girls : Madeleine Hicks
Supervenus : Frédéric Doazan
Take Me Drunk I'm Home : Nolan J Downs
Talking With Hands — Organic Machine : T.J. Masters
This is Us : Kevin Ralston
Tribu : Carlos Gómez-Trigo
The Wake : Dave Coleman
Waves Won't Stop : Ioannis Papaloizou
Welcome to the Ball : Adam Vincent Wright
We Need To Talk About Balloons : Jennifer Bonior
Wolf Puppy : Sam Osborn
2025 MAUREEN SAARI-WILDMAN MEMORIAL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN DEFIANCE (“the moe”) winner:
Cliff
Best of 2025:
BEST OF FEST - FEATURE: Sunshine Girls
BEST OF FEST - SHORT: Climate Control
Learn about the Defy Awards HERE.
2025 PRESS:
NASHVILLE SCENE
MORE PRESS HERE
JUDGES:
Dr. Bertram, a Tennessee native, is a Film Studies professor in the Motion Pictures Department at Belmont University. She holds a PhD in French and Cinema Studies, and her courses include Film History, Television and Digital Media, and special topics such as French New Wave, Cinematic Universes, and directors like Hitchcock, Scorsese, Spike Lee, and Ava DuVernay. She has published chapters on François Ozon and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and her work on Agnès Varda appears in a recent volume on French directors. Beyond the classroom, she has introduced films at Nashville’s Belcourt Theatre and continues to research the intersections of cinema, culture, and social justice.
Michael Eades is obsessed with the proverbial goop between technology and creativity. He has run the indie record label yk Records since 2009; assisting a wide variety of artists to release their creations into the world by wading in the goop of album art, music videos, websites, podcasts and the connective tissue between them.
tHANK YOU TO OUR 2025 sponsors:
