Season 2027
Meet the filmmakers who judge this season's entries.
Filmmaker
Randy Moore's debut film, Escape from Tomorrow, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and became a cult favorite, winning the Noves Visions Experimenta Award at the Sitges Catalonian Film Festival and the Emerging Filmmaker Award at the Memphis Indie Film Festival. Moore studied filmmaking at Full Sail University and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Director / Writer / Producer
As an Irish director and screenwriter, O'Reilly's films and feature screenplays have appeared in the Official Selection at Cannes film festival, the Sundance Theatre Lab, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of the Sundance Institute, as well as at Academy-qualifying festivals including the Rhode Island International Film Festival, DOC NYC, and Cinequest. Her feature screenplay We're the Kids in America was an official selection at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2018. Her triptych of three short films titled Eggs and Soldiers, Tumbling Towards Home and Suspicious Minds have screened on Radio Teléfís Eireann. Highlighted awards include a Director's Choice Award from the Thomas Edison Black Maria Film Festival, a Creative World Award and a Tonino Guerra Award. Her Moroccan film Bricks, Beds and Sheep's Heads, shot on a Fulbright Fellowship was nominated for a Student Academy Award. She was a commissioned writer on Song for New York, developed through Mabou Mines. Her most recent 360 VR film titled Under the Wolf's Cloak toured to Chicago, University of San Diego and Casablanca, Morocco. Her scholarly work, "Haunting and Counter-Archive in 'We Have Just Begun,'" was published in Astrix Journal. Other published work includes poetry and fiction, and her plays were produced in NYC. She is a member of BAFTA and the European Film Academy. She has an M.F.A. in film from Columbia University. She is a Professor at James Madison University, prior to JMU she taught for NYU's graduate film program in Singapore.
Director / Producer
David Shadrack Smith is the director of the feature documentary, Public Access, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2026. He began his career as a journalist in Beijing, China, followed by a staff position at National Geographic Television. In 2007 he founded Part2 Pictures, a premium non-fiction production company based in Brooklyn, NY. As Creative Director, David has directed and overseen series and films from concept to completion for Netflix, Hulu, CNN, Max, Showtime, Nat Geo, and others - earning multiple Emmy nominations, a Sundance Jury Prize, two James Beard Awards, and an IDA Award. Notable series include Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi (Hulu), This Is Life with Lisa Ling (CNN), Age of Influence (Hulu), Dark Net (Showtime), and Belief with Oprah Winfrey (OWN). Public Access is his first independent feature.
Filmmaker / Film Editor / Motion Designer
Dennis Büschemann is a 40-year-old German motion graphics designer, film editor, and filmmaker with over 15 years of experience in visual storytelling. His work includes contributions to the Academy Award-nominated feature film Never Look Away (Werk ohne Autor), as well as directing and animating his own independent short films. Throughout his career, he has worked on countless television campaigns and theatrical trailers for major studios, including Disney and 20th Century Fox. Combining a strong background in editing, animation, and cinematic storytelling, he brings both technical expertise and a filmmaker's perspective to his creative work.
How the jury review works is set out in Rules & Terms, under Selection and programming.
The Grand Jury prizes, every category and the dates for Season 2027 are on the Awards page.