This year’s winners, chosen from more than 150 submissions and 12 shortlisted finalists from global submissions, from countries including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Poland, France, Japan, Madagascar, and others, inspired by the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement.
Washington, D.C. – The March On Festival – our nation’s longest-running civil rights film festival- is proud to announce the winners of its 2025 Student & Emerging Filmmaker Competitions. Hosted by Emmy-winning Producer and director of the Emerging & Student Filmmaker Competitions, Opal Hope Bennett, the competitions showcase the power of short films that transcend borders and explore issues such as race, memory, education, and community resilience.
Winners and Runner-Ups:
- Emerging Documentary Short Film (Grand Prize – $1,000): Teaching America by Anurima Bhargava – a gripping look at the battle over teaching African-American history in U.S. schools, centering Arkansas’ inaugural AP African American Studies classes.
- Emerging Documentary Short Film (Runner-Up – $500): Expanding Sanctuary by Kristal Sotomayor – the story of an immigrant mother’s fight against the Philadelphia Police Department’s sharing of its database with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
- Emerging Narrative Short Film (Grand Prize – $1,000): Jean & I by Mirta Desir – following Michelle, a 10-year-old survivor of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and her navigation of trauma and family secrets.
- Emerging Narrative Short Film (Runner-Up – $500): Desync by Minerva Marie Navasca – about a Filipina filmmaker attempting to overwrite painful memories of a past fight with her mother.
- Student Documentary Short Film (Grand Prize – $1,000): SK8 LITE by Nmesomachi Nwokolo – exploring the eventful lives of skateboarders and skateboarding culture in Lagos.
- Student Documentary Short Film (Runner-Up – $500): From Rodeo to Polo: The First HBCU Polo Team by Kendi King – chronicling the unlikely rise of Morehouse College’s first polo team as it chases national USPA certification.
- Student Narrative Short Film (Grand Prize – $1000): I Gaze at the Sky (Patrzę w niebo) by Alexandra Strunin – The early days of the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian children displaced by the conflict are brought to a Russian elementary school. One of them turns out to be the long-lost nephew of Victoria, a music teacher of Ukrainian descent. Victoria awakens from the slumber of Russian propaganda and begins a desperate fight to save the boy.
- Student Narrative Short Film (Runner-Up – $500): Anything Helps by Aya Bogod – A homeless mother faces impossible choices as she fights to protect her daughter’s innocence while struggling to secure shelter and survive on New York City’s unforgiving streets.
Quotes
Opal Hope Bennett, Competition Host:
“Our annual Student & Emerging Filmmaker Competitions at March On! have always been about more than films. They signal a passing of the torch to a new generation of voices who, in real time, are shaping the narratives of today. Whether prize-winning or not, all of the films submitted to the competition this year remind us of why art remains a powerful medium of resistance and truth-telling.”
Winner & Runner-Up Statements:
- Anurima Bhargava (Teaching America): “Teaching America honors the students and teachers bravely and joyfully standing up together for the freedom to learn and to celebrate our collective history and culture. Their desire and commitment to African-American Studies being taught – and taught with depth, grace, and dignity – is a shared call and vision that we must all be a part of, especially in these days of widespread silencing and erasure.
- Kristal Sotomayor (Expanding Sanctuary): “I grew up in a Latino immigrant household where I saw firsthand how our stories are too often flattened into stereotypes, leaving our real lives misrepresented. Expanding Sanctuary is my love letter to the resilience of immigrant mothers. It’s a film that spotlights the richness of our communities, honors our courage, and insists on our fight to reimagine and transform systems that have been weaponized against us.”
- Mirta Desir (Jean & I): “Through Jean & I, I wanted to tell the story of survival and resilience in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. At its core, for me, the film is about the duality of children that can carry both past trauma and hope for a new future.”
- Minerva Marie Navasca (Desync): “This project was deeply personal. It explores how memory, societal pressure, and storytelling collide, and how we sometimes rewrite our own histories to heal.”
- Nmesomachi Nwokolo (SK8 LITE): “Skateboarding in Lagos is more than a sport; it’s a way of life that encompasses rebellion, identity, and a way to dream. I wanted to authentically document both the joy and the challenges that come with partaking in the culture.”
- Kendi King (From Rodeo to Polo): “This film is about showing up authentically in every room because we belong everywhere. The journey of these pioneering Morehouse men quickly became less about being the first Black collegiate polo team, and more about staking claim in a field where Black southern history had been erased”
- Alexandra Strunin (I Gaze at the Sky): “This film reflects the painful realities of displacement and propaganda throughout the course of the war in Ukraine. I wanted to show how one teacher’s awakening becomes a fight to reclaim truth and protect the next generation.”
- Aya Bogod (Anything Helps): “The film is about the impossible choices too many mothers face when survival collides with protecting their children’s humanity and innocence. It is both a portrait of struggle and of love’s determination even in the harshest conditions.”
About March On!
Originally launched in 2013 in D.C. as the March on Washington Film Festival, March On! is a year-round platform using film, music, and the arts to uplift the untold stories of the Civil Rights Movement and connect them to today’s social justice struggles. We bring history, scholarship, and the performing and visual arts together to inspire civic engagement and cultural change.
