If it’s the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving, it means it is once again time to present this year’s winners for the Solzy Awards for Short Films in 2025.

I didn’t issue any awards for short films in 2024 on their own last year, opting to wait until my main awards were issued. It speaks to just how few short films that I watched last year. Much of this had to do with my headspace for much of the first half of 2024, what with antisemitism being as awful as it was and unfortunately, still is. This year, I’ve watched enough short films to where I feel comfortable going ahead and announcing them on their own as something of a pre-Thanksgiving weekend teaser.

If you notice a common theme in the Solzy Awards for Short Films, well, I covered more Jewish film festivals in 2025 than non-Jewish film festivals. More often than not, festivals are the only time when I watch shorts–well, aside from when they’re included with physical home entertainment releases. I expect this trend to continue in 2026.

Some of these shorts premiered in 2024 but I didn’t know about them until this year and so they qualify for the 2025 calendar year. This is just the nature of how film festivals tend to work. Two short films played during the 2025 Miami Jewish Film Festival earlier this year, but sadly, I was focused on features at the time and didn’t get to watching them until much later.

The rest of the Solzy Awards for documentaries and film will not be announced until December.

Best Jewish Short Because It’s So Relatable: Cut Off

Best Jewish Short with a Side of Torah: The Unburdened

Best Neo-Western Short: Neo-Dome

Best Musical Comedy Short: Catalogue of Noses

Best Musical Drama Short: Malka

Best Unsettling and Unhinged Short: DISC

Best Animated Short: Krypto Saves the Day!: School Bus Scuffle

Best Documentary Short: Fiddler on the Moon: Judaism in Space

The Solzy Awards for Documentaries and Film are coming soon.

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