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SeriesFest, the annual television festival in Denver, has unveiled the winners of its independent pilot competition.

Lake Boga won best drama pilot, Settle Down won best comedy pilot, Vs. Goliath won best unscripted pilot and F*ckUps Anonymous picked up the award for best short series.

“We can think of no better way to close out another successful edition of the festival than to celebrate and give back to the independent storytellers who continue to push the boundaries of the medium,” said SeriesFest Co-Founders Randi Kleiner and Kaily Smith. “SeriesFest has a long history of being a discovery platform for the independent television community, and we are thrilled to be able to further this year’s creatives’ work through the opportunities these awards and resources provide.”

Lake Boga, which was directed by Ben Bryan and exec produced by Nick Farnell and Anthony Sharpe, follows Nathan, an experienced ex-military assassin, who...

Writer Joe Tierney is joined by director Katrina Whalen and stars Andrew Michael Fama and Sarah Jeffery to discuss this true life story about a rebellious teenager who is sent to a therapeutic boarding school with controversial methods where the treatment of a fellow classmate on his first day makes the consequences of his actions frighteningly clear. They talk about their responsibility in bringing Joe’s true life story to the screen, what the plan is for the project next, and also….effin'Jessica.

Congratulations on winning the SXSW Grand Jury Winner - Independent TV Pilot Competition!

Amid the classic, flashy film and television premieres this week at SXSW, the festival also offered a forum for burgeoning creators to showcase their work in the Independent TV Pilot Program.

These seven wide-ranging pilots rely primarily on personal experiences — from mental illness to queer identity — while also taking creative risks to offer something new to the television landscape.

Screened throughout the week, the pilots debuted at the Rollins Theatre at The Long Center on March 9 to a receptive crowd, which included Woody Harrelson, who attended in support of former Champions co-star Kevin Iannucci’s project R&r.

Following the premiere screening, the creative teams from each project took the stage to discuss the unique challenges that independent filmmakers are facing in the current television environment and how those were overcome on their projects, including lack of financing and resources.

Woody Harrelson, Kevin Iannucci, JJ Herz

Per the jury results,...

The 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival announced its award winners on Wednesday night, with Slanted from Amy Wang chosen as this year’s narrative feature winner.

“This unflinching satirical thriller examines racial identity in a bold and skin-tingling new way. Featuring simmering performances by the cast, this film is both specific to the fractured identity of Asian Americans and universally relatable in its theme of desperately needing to belong,” said narrative feature jury members Clayton Davis (Variety), Rebecca Ford (Vanity Fair), and Ryan Lattanzio (Indiewire) in a joint statement. “The director’s vulnerability in mining her personal experience combined with her delicate and daring filmmaking create a haunting piece that lingers long after the credits roll.”

The narrative feature jury also awarded special honors to Annapurna Sriram for her film F--ktoys and actress Amanda Peet (Fantasy Life).

“Annapurna Sriram is a visionary force, a rare artist whose work is as daring as it is singular.

Slanted, directed by Amy Wang, won the grand jury prize in the narrative competition section of the 2025 SXSW Film and TV festival.

Slanted follows Joan Huang, a senior in high school who undergoes an experimental racial transformation to become white and win Prom Queen.

“This unflinching satirical thriller examines racial identity in a bold and skin-tingling new way. Featuring simmering performances by the cast, this film is both specific to the fractured identity of Asian Americans and universally relatable in its theme of desperately needing to belong,” wrote the competition jury, Variety‘s Clayton Davis, Vanity Fair’s Rebecca Ford and IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio, about Slanted.

In the narrative section, special jury awards were given to Annapurna Sriram for Fucktoys and Amanda Peet for Fantasy Life for multihyphenate and performance, respectively.

Shuffle directed by Benjamin Flaherty, which follows three people in treatment to dig into insurance-fueled cycle of addiction treatment fraud,...

Shifting the attention from starry premieres at Austin’s Paramount Theatre to the independent film and TV projects that make up the majority of its lineup, the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival has announced the jury awards for its 2025 edition.

Amy Wang’s “Slanted” won the narrative feature competition, rewarding the tonal and thematic audacity of a high school comedy with boundary-pushing “The Substance” vibes. Wang, who also wrote the upcoming “Crazy Rich Asians” sequel, challenges beauty standards in a culture that idealizes whiteness, imagining a Chinese American teen (Shirley Chen) so desperate to be elected prom queen that she undergoes a radical identity-reconstruction procedure (she’s played by Mckenna Grace post-operation). The insecure teen immediately enjoys the perks of white privilege, but isn’t at all prepared for the downsides.

“This unflinching satirical thriller examines racial identity in a bold and skin-tingling new way,” said the jury, praising...

Chinese filmmaker Jing Zou, director of the narrative feature film “A Girl Unknown,” has been named as the winner of the fifth annual Lynn Shelton “Of a Certain Age” Grant from Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum (Nwff). This grant includes an unrestricted cash award of $25,000 to support her directorial debut, which follows a girl from age six through her 30s as she’s passed between multiple families and is inspired by the true story of generations of Chinese girls who were abandoned as a result of the country’s defunct one-child policy.

“I am absolutely honored to be selected as the recipient of the 2024 Lynn Shelton ‘Of a Certain Age’ award for my first feature, ‘A Girl Unknown.’ Thank you for this recognition and for your support,” Zou said in a statement. “I am committed to making the most of this award and to creating a film that honors the spirit of Lynn Shelton.

Dale’s House Review — Dale’s House (2021) Video TV Show Review, directed by Katrina Whalen, written by and starring Matt Kirsch and Julie Lake, and co-starring Sandi McCree. In this video review, I talk about the new horror comedy pilot episode of Dale’s House. This show is a part of my coverage of the 2021 [...]

Continue reading: Video TV Show Review: Dale’S House: A Boring, Awkward Horror Comedy Pilot [SXSW 2021]...