CAA Unveils 2025 Moebius Film Festival Lineup

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CAA Unveils 2025 Moebius Film Festival Lineup

CAA has announced that the tenth annual CAA Moebius Film Festival, a two-day screening series showcasing graduate student filmmakers, will take place May 28–29, 2025.

Marking its tenth anniversary, this year’s festival features its broadest representation of film programs to date, with graduate student filmmakers from a growing list of distinguished institutions. For the first time, Columbia University joins a lineup that includes returning schools such as Chapman University, the American Film Institute (AFI) Conservatory, New York University (NYU), England’s National Film and Television School (NFTS) and CalArts, among others.

The tenth edition of the Moebius Film Festival will spotlight 10 short films selected from a record-breaking 170+ submissions, showcasing both live-action and animated works. This year’s lineup explores themes of self-actualization, coming-of-age and family, spanning genres from drama and comedy to horror, all in service of the festival’s mission to champion cultural and artistic diversity.

Since its founding in 2015, Moebius has become a respected platform for emerging filmmakers, offering early exposure that has helped launch successful careers. Among its notable alumni is Felipe Vargas, whose Moebius-selected short “Rosario,” a supernatural tale rooted in Latin American folklore, helped pave the way for a feature adaptation that received critical acclaim on the international festival circuit. Similarly, Oran Zegman’s short “Marriage Material” screened at Moebius several years before her feature debut “Honor Society,” starring Angourie Rice and Gaten Matarazzo, premiered on Paramount+. The festival also counts among its alumni Max Barbakow, who made his narrative feature debut with the acclaimed “Palm Springs” and most recently directed “Brothers” for Legendary, starring Glenn Close, Peter Dinklage and Josh Brolin.

Conceived by then-trainees and now CAA Motion Picture agents Christina Chou, Zach Kaplan and Pete Stein, along with Lingie Park, Moebius is organized by a team of young leaders across the agency, including Odessa Chiklis, Olivia Guevara, Sidney Jaet, Brendan Kim, Jessica Lee, Cameron Mendez, Jack Spencer, Saundarya Thapa, Lex Torrington, Jordyn Walker and Nick Wnuk.

“Reaching our tenth year is a milestone that speaks to the power and promise of emerging filmmakers,” said Chou, Kaplan and Stein in a joint statement. “With each edition, Moebius continues to grow in scale and scope, and this year’s submissions reflect a global range of voices, bold ideas, and cinematic vision. We’re proud to provide a platform where the next generation of storytellers can be discovered and celebrated.”

Moebius supports CAA’s larger commitment to inclusion, collaboration, and belonging within the agency and beyond. Over time, CAA has launched a number of programs and initiatives to support creators and executives from all backgrounds, including the Full Story Initiative, an industry-led effort designed to generate more authentic storytelling in television and film, and CAA Amplify, a platform to connect a cross-disciplinary group of leaders from media, entertainment, sports, technology and beyond, to explore professional opportunities, social impact initiatives, and collaborations to accelerate transformational change in rooms of business and popular culture.

The 2025 Moebius programming line-up is as follows:

NIGHT 1 – WEDNESDAY, MAY 28TH

THE WRATH OF OTHELL-YO! directed by Kwesi Jones (NYU)
- When the lead of an erotic Othello adaptation fails to get erect, a PA volunteers to double-in but discovers that rising to the occasion is harder than he thought.
GIRLS IN REAL LIFE SITUATIONS directed by Ofre Sparrow Vaknin (CalArts)
- Sam, Lexi, and Jane spend the first day of eighth grade plotting a scheme to get the ultimate lunch table. Their plans unravel when Katy, a preppy sixth grade TikTok influencer, beats them to the coveted post.
BRUNO & ELENA directed by Javier Hirschler (Columbia)
- On the last day of high school, Bruno finally manages to charm the girl of his dreams and invites her over to his house. But his mother, Elena, won’t stay in her room.
DANDELION directed by Fiona Obertinca (AFI)
- In 1970s Los Angeles, rebellious queer teen Margaret gets thrown out of yet another foster placement and finds herself in the company of a mysterious social worker who is tasked with finding Margaret a new home before the break of dawn.
NERVOUS ENERGY directed by Eve Liu (NYU)
- On the cusp of success/failure, two unhinged female filmmakers decide to break up with their boyfriends, and for once, make a bold decision with their lives.

NIGHT 2 – THURSDAY, MAY 29TH

FOLLOW ME WHEREVER I GO directed by Maxwell DeFalco (Chapman)
- A deeply religious single mother is determined to start her life anew and will stop at nothing until she gets what she wants—her son’s best friend.
A VERY NORMAL-SEEMING MAN directed by Allamaprabhu Pattanashetty (NYU)
- A man pitches movie ideas to his filmmaker son… all starring himself.
DAD SWAP directed by Ethan Mermelstein (Columbia)
- Ethan Mermelstein’s dad is a dick, and he’s had enough. So, he swaps him out with his dad’s best friend/nemesis, Ron.
FAWN directed by Molly Mayhew (NFTS)
- Following the sudden passing of her parents, Fawn is forced to return to a house she hasn’t called home in a very long time. As painful memories begin to seep through, Fawn is thrown onto the difficult path of reconnecting with a past she thought she had left behind.
TEEN MARY directed by Ali Rosenthal (AFI)
- Mary is a teenage girl living in Nazareth in the year Zero (but speaking in modern dialogue). She’s a normal teen: horny. But when Mary gets knocked up by a hot, married shepherd and might get stoned to death for adultery, she and her gay best friend Joseph hatch a plan to save their lives. They’ll convince everybody that God made Mary pregnant—with the new Messiah.

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