The Waco Indie Film Festival announced the award winners for the 8th edition of the film festival (It’s first as Waco Indie following 7 years as the Deep in the Heart FF) and H. Nelson Tracey’s Breakup Season won Best Narrative Feature and Be Judkins’ The Cigarette Surfboard won Best Documentary Feature. Breakup Season’s Chandler Riggs also took home Best Performance, and Vivian Kerr won Best Director for her film Scrap.

Co-Founders and Co-Directors Louis Hunter and Samuel Thomas, said, “This edition of the film festival had an added excitement and energy thanks to our name change and a little added star wattage with Chandler Riggs (The Walking Dead) joining us, but was also a wonderful reminder of why Waco Indie/Deep in the Heart keeps landing on the ‘top film festival’ lists. Our attending filmmakers immediately created such a cohesive creative community supporting each other, going to each other’s films, exchanging notes on filmmaking, that you couldn’t help but get caught up in that supportive spirit. Our award-winning films this year could not have been better examples of that spirit, that energy, and the specific exuberant joy that comes from creating and making film independently, then sharing it with an audience that fully appreciates it.”

Audiences chose Linda Broock’s documentary Unleashed as their feature film Audience Award winner, and Alexander Jeffery and Chris Alan Evans’ Caught on Tape as the Audience Award winner for short film.

Films cited with Special Jury Awards due to the impact they made on the film festival’s directors and top programmers and included: Baseball Behind Barbed Wire (Director: Yuriko Gamo Romer), The Coyote Sisters (Directors: Autumn Harrison and Tory LeClair), Just Laugh (Director: Kemp Brinson), and We Rise (Director: Michael A. Afendakis).

Leading the award winners in the short film categories were Liam LoPinto’s The Old Young Crow, which took the prize for Best Short Film; Joshua Gallas’ Smoke, which garnered the Best Texas Short Film award; Erin Brown Thomas’ (subtext), which won Best U.S. Short Film; Martin Strange-Hansen’s On My Mind, which was named Best Foreign Short Film; and Madoka Belda Yamamoto’s Where We Belong, which won Best Student Short Film.

Waco Indie FF also presented its Waco Indie Screenplay Grant to Amanda Pfeiffer for her script “As Luck Would Have It.” The third year that Waco Indie has presented this grant, also marked the first in which a past winner was selected to screen at the film festival. Gregory JM Kasunich’s The Heart of Texas, which was written by, and starred Lauren Noll, won the inaugural presentation of the award in 2022.

2024 Waco Indie Film Festival Filmmaker Award Winners

Feature Film Awards

Best Feature Film (Narrative)
Breakup Season
Director: H. Nelson Tracey

Best Feature Film (Documentary)
The Cigarette Surfboard
Director: Ben Judkins

Best Director – Feature Film
Vivian Kerr (Scrap)

Best Performance – Feature Film
Chandler Riggs (Breakup Season)

Audience Awards

Feature Film
Unleashed
Director: Linda Broocks

Short Film
Caught On Tape
Directors: Alexander Jeffery, Chris Alan Evans

Short Film Awards

Best Short Film
The Old Young Crow
Director: Liam LoPinto

Best Texas Short Film
Smoke
Director: Joshua Gallas

Best United States Short Film
(subtext)
Director: Erin Brown Thomas

Best Foreign Short Film
On My Mind
Director: Martin Strange-Hansen

Best Student Short Film
Where We Belong
Director: Madoka Belda Yamamoto

Short Film Awards by Genre

Best Drama Short
Deliberate
Director: Marta Roncada

Best Comedy Short
Caught On Tape
Directors: Alexander Jeffery, Chris Alan Evans

Best Documentary Short
What Happened To You
Director: Alec Goldberg

Best Fantasy/Sci-Fi Short
Mångata
Director: Maja Costa

Best Horror/Thriller Short
Up On the Housetop
Directors: Dakota Millett, Michael Fischer

Best Family Short
Purple and Green
Director: Charlotte Oxley

Best Music Video
“Come and Save Me”
Director: Chris White

Short Film Craft Awards

Best Director – Short Film
Elizabeth Sherman (Ring By Spring)

Best Performance – Short Film (Drama)
Jake Hart (Big George)

Best Performance – Short Film (Comedy)
Bixby Elliot (The Yellow Sponge is the Dish Sponge)

Best Cinematography – Short Film
Steven Gunter (Leverage)

Best Editing – Short Film
Andrew Schwab (Eating 38 Cheeseburgers)

Best Screenplay – Short Film
Clayton Henderson (Clownfish)

Best Production Design – Short Film
Andrew G. Smith (Your Move)

Special Jury Awards

Baseball Behind Barbed Wire (Director: Yuriko Gamo Romer)
The Coyote Sisters (Directors: Autumn Harrison, Tory LeClair)
Just Laugh (Director: Kemp Brinson)
We Rise (Director: Michael A Afendakis)

Screenplay Competition

Best Unproduced Screenplay – First Place
“As Luck Would Have It” (Writer: Amanda Pfeiffer)

Best Unproduced Screenplay – Honorable Mention
“Ashes To Dust” (Writer: Clark Childers)