Thank you to the filmmakers and film experts who helped compile our list of the Coolest Film Festivals in the World, 2025 edition.
Their insights and experiences make this a list that we hope will be helpful to fellow filmmakers everywhere.
Below is more information on the Panel of Cool and their stellar work.
Katie and Ian Bignell
KATIE AND IAN BIGNELL run Festival Formula, with 20+ years experience behind it, providing strategy support to filmmakers worldwide. They are active members of the Short Film Conference and Film Festival Alliance, and are a key voice on festival issues, with coverage in The Hollywood Reporter and Screen Daily regarding fraudulent film festivals. Previous speaking engagements include HollyShorts, Heartland Film Festival, BFI Flare, Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Sundance, SXSW, and many more. Selected prior jury service includes Cleveland International, Heartland International, St. Louis International, PÖFF Shorts Film Festival, Palm Springs Shortsfest, Young Directors Awards, Raindance, Tallgrass Film Festival, Fantoche and more. They were the co-recipients of the Pioneering Spirit Award from Heartland Film (2024), and the company received the award for Outstanding Contribution to Film from the London Breeze Film Festival (2024) and the Impact Award from the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival (2025). Katie is the Festival Expert in the inaugural online education program launched by University of Exeter, in conjunction with David Putnam’s Atticus Education and Screen International.
Heather Brawley
HEATHER BRAWLEY, a Bay Area native, has spent the last 16 years at Archstone Entertainment in sales, acquisitions, and delivery, contributing to hundreds of films. She has also produced many award-winning shorts, with 70+ festival selections, while also co-producing feature films at Archstone, where she currently serves as VP of Marketing and Operations. Her experience with projects across a wide range of budgets enables her to scale and execute successful productions from development through delivery. You can read more here about one of the shorts she has produced, “Princeton’s in the Mix.”
Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz
GIANFRANCO FERNÁNDEZ-RUIZ is an award winning writer and director. His short film “When Big People Lie” had its World Premiere at the 51st Telluride Film Festival. It also screened in competition at the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the American Pavilion at Cannes, and won Best Short Film Drama at NFMLA’s 13th Annual Awards. He is a recipient of the Latino Film Institute x Netflix Inclusion Fellowship and a finalist for the HBO Short Film Award and the Sony Future Filmmaker Award, and his work qualified for the 96th Academy Awards. Gianfranco earned a Masters from the AFI Conservatory in Directing. His seventh short, “Anemoia, Scenes From the Future” is currently in post-production and will be released in 2026.
Ray Smiling
RAY SMILING is a director whose work focuses on finding universal emotion presented in wild specificity. The stories he creates are naturalistic yet absurd, with a distinct visual flair. They feature people you feel like you already know, in situations both funny and emotionally rich. Basically, you can tell you’re watching something he made, if you’re feeling feelings, about a thing you never thought you’d feel feelings about. You can read more here about one of his films, “kamikaze.”
H. Nelson Tracey
H. NELSON TRACEYis a director, producer, and editor based in Los Angeles. His feature debut Breakup Season played at 39 film festivals in 2024 (and he attended 22 of them) before being acquired for distribution. After an 18-city theatrical run last winter, Breakup Season is now available to stream on Amazon. He directed his first music video in August and is now developing his sophomore feature film.
Milana Vayntrub
MILANA VAYNTRUB is an Uzbekistan-born, American writer, performer and director. Most recently, Milana portrayed antagonistic prosecutor Pam Bozanich in Season 2 of Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story for Netflix. She also starred in Bad Shabbos, which debuted at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival. She directed and starred in the comedic short film “Pickled Herring,” which made its world premiere at Indy Shorts in 2023. She will soon appear alongside Ryan Gosling in Amazon MGM Studios’ Project Hail Mary, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Other credits include Werewolves Within, Die Hart, This Is Us, Silicon Valley, and House of Lies. Most notably, she released a documentary entitled Can’t Do Nothing: Refugees in Lesbos, focusing on the refugee crisis. The documentary has since turned into the #CantDoNothing movement and is responsible for building schools and medical centers in refugee camps worldwide.
Zhang & Night
ZHANG & KNIGHT (Linden Zhang and Hannah Knight) are a London-based directing duo whose soulful films explore themes of cultural identity through folklore. They began their career in music videos and commercials, and their distinctively dreamy films and campaigns quickly gained recognition, with their work winning numerous awards. Their debut short film “A Bear Remembers” has won top prizes at Clermont-Ferrand and Aspen Shortsfest, and was selected for the Telluride Film Festival. They are currently developing their first feature-length project.
Photos provided by the Panel of Cool. Milana Vayntrub photo by Sela Shiloni