The 2025 Palm Springs International ShortFest announced its juried and audience award winners on Sunday during the the Awards Brunch at the Renaissance Hotel Palm Springs. Awards and cash prizes worth $30,000 including, five Academy Award-qualifying awards were presented to the winners selected from the 311 short films in the Festival’s official selection.
Among the Oscar-qualifying award winners is John Kelly’s 2D-animated meditation Retirement Plan (Ireland), which won the Best of the Festival prize ($5,000). Voice starring Domhnall Gleeson, the Screen Ireland/RTÉ commission centers on a man named Ray who fantasizes about everything he wants to do when he retires, when he finally has the “time.” The short previously won both the Jury and Audience Awards for animation at SXSW.
The Oscar-qualifying Best Animated Short award ($1,000) went to Budō (Sweden), directed by Amanda Aagard and Alexander Toma. Winner of a Special Mention for animated short at Tribeca, the whimsical stop-motion comedy unfolds as a lonely widow is followed home by a stray cat, who makes itself at home in her tiny Tokyo apartment in ways she never imagined.
A Special Mention for Animated Short went to The Little Ancestor (Canada), by Alexa Tremblay-Francoeur.
Additional animated winners include the stop-motion celebration of queer identity, Dragfox (U.K.) by Lisa Ott, which won the Best Student Animated Short prize ($1,000), with a Special Mention in the category awarded to Ma Mao (Canada) by Thanh Ngo.
This year, both Kids’ Choice Award winners were also animated treats. Taking home the $1,000 top prize was Wednesdays with Gramps (U.S.A.), directed by Chris and Justin Copeland. The youth jury also awarded a Special Mention to Forevergreen (U.S.A.) by Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears. Wednesdays with Gramps also won the Audience Award for Best Animated Short.
Learn more at psfilmfest.org/shortfest-2025.
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