The 2025 Oak Cliff Film Festival Wraps an EPIC Fest!

As a film journalist, I often get the opportunity to attend some pretty amazing, smaller film festivals. My attendance used to be much more frequent, sometimes to the point of having to choose one fest over another but, those days are gone and, I digress. Withiout a doubt one of the best regional, cultural film festivals going today is the Oak Cliff Film Festival which takes place each year in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, TX.

A little backstory…in 2001 a group of film fanatics formed a non-profit organization to buy the truly historic theater. Built in 1931, the theater is most famous for being the place where Lee Harvey Oswald hid and was captured after the Kennedy assassination.

I was fortunate enough to attend the 2015 festival as well as the 2017 one and each fest has been incredibly special. The folks in charge (shout out to Barak Epstein, Jason Reimer, Eric Steele, Chris Gardner, Ashton Campbell…apologies if I forgot anyone!) truly love cinema and that shows in the films and events they curate throughout the year as well as at the festival itself.

Sadly, I couldn’t make it out there this year and my FOMO was intense. Making matters even tougher to accept, I missed seeing some friends like Dallas Film Society Artistic Director James Faust, writer Chris Vognar, old pal David Gil from the Austin Film Fest as well as filmmakers Augustine Frizell and David Lowery. Sigh. That doesn’t even include some of my favorite people like producer Kelly Williams and Melaie Addington who helped program the fest. Ugh!

As if salting my wounds, the aforementioned Ashton Campbell who is co-director of the fest said, “This year’s Oak Cliff Film Fest beat new records for the organization. We saw our highest number of tickets sold and had more filmmakers attending than ever in OCFF history. 2025 felt like a revival of what films festivals are meant to be. Rather than lean on big studio titles and films already on people’s radars today, we showcased the movies and filmmakers they’ll be talking about five years from now.

For community driven, neighborhood fests like ours, providing a megaphone for diverse voices that deserve and need amplification is what it’s all about. The attendance numbers proved that that’s what audiences want; something new and familiar all at once.”

Programmer Melanie Addington (who is also a staff writer here at HtN) echoed those sentiments saying, “With a record number of submissions and then attendance, Oak Cliff was a blast this year with great filmmakers and, as always, great audiences that ask thoughtful questions. I haven’t had a bad Q&A experience as a programmer there yet!”

Even though the fest ended, you (and, me) should definitely plan on attending next year. Below is a list of fest winners and more info can be found at the 2025 Oak Cliff Film Festival website.

Best narrative feature – No Sleep Till

Special jury mention – Fucktoys

Best doc feature – Body to Live In

Jury mention for cinematography – Natchez

Best nar short – She Raised Me

Jury mention: acting and writing – Nuke

Best doc short – El Casco de Carlos

Special jury tie – Meet the Noisemakers & The Shift

Best student short – Taking it to the Streets

Special Jury mention cinematography – Madawa

Special mention creative animation –See You at Home

– Don R. Lewis (@ThatDonLewis)

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