Awards and Juried Competition

2025 Jurors

Jim Brunzell III

Jim Brunzell III was born in the 1970s, played sports in the ’80s, went to school in the ’90s and started working on film festivals in the 2000s. He joined the Twin Cities-based music and film festival, Sound Unseen, in 2008 as a programmer and became the festival’s director in 2012. During his tenure, the festival has been named one of the “25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World" (2016 and 2019) by Moviemaker Magazine and one of the “20 Great First Time Moviemakers Festivals” in 2022. In 2023, he joined Los Angeles-based film distributor Dark Star Pictures as director of festivals and theatrical. He has served on numerous film festival juries and is a big sports nerd, especially a die-hard Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Dodgers fan. He is also the father to a 7-year-old tabby cat named Bruce.

Cynthia Gibb

Cynthia Gibb is a filmmaker and Golden Globe-nominated actress with more than 60 film and television credits. She has directed five short films through Triple Threat’s award-winning Independent Film Project, drawing on decades of on-set experience and collaborations with leading directors and producers. Inspired by Oliver Stone’s guerrilla filmmaking on Salvador and further shaped by thousands of hours on film sets, she carries forward the mission to share stories that tackle difficult subject matter.

Judge Reinhold

Judge Reinhold has appeared in over 75 motion picture and television roles over a 35-year career, earning an international audience of all ages. His credits include Stripes, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Gremlins, Ruthless People and Disney’s The Santa Clause trilogy, as well as Beverly Hills Cop 1-3. An Emmy Award nominee for Seinfeld, Reinhold is a longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and recently reunited with Eddie Murphy in Netflix’s hit Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.