Nukhufest Awards, Selection & Jury Process
Learn how Nukhufest selects films and determines the audience chosen Best Nuvee and professional jury selected Grand Jury Prize.
How Nukhufest Recognizes Films
Nukhufest was created to discover independent films, connect them with audiences, and recognize creative work through both public response and professional peer evaluation.
The festival presents two separate primary film awards:
Best Nuvee
Chosen by the Nukhu audience.
Nukhufest Grand Jury Prize
Chosen by a professional jury of qualified filmmakers and film industry professionals.
The awards are independent. A film may receive either distinction or both.
Nukhufest Official Selection
Nukhufest Official Selections are films selected by the festival programming team to participate in that year’s Nukhufest program.
Selections are guided by Nukhu’s longstanding curation principles:
Concept
The strength, clarity, originality, and intention of the idea.
Aesthetic
The effectiveness of the film’s execution and the relationship between form and content.
Relatability and Resonance
The film’s ability to communicate something recognizably human, provoke thought or emotion, and remain with the viewer after it ends.
Official Selection is not determined by audience voting.
Depending on the festival category and annual program, an Official Selection may be presented theatrically, on Nukhu, or through both forms of exhibition.
Nukhufest Grand Jury Competition
Films submitted to the Nukhufest Grand Jury Competition are considered for a limited theatrical competition in addition to consideration for Nukhufest Official Selection.
Grand Jury Competition submissions automatically receive consideration for Nukhu Official Selection. Filmmakers do not need to submit the same film separately to both categories.
Films selected for the Grand Jury Competition are exhibited theatrically as part of Nukhufest and are evaluated by the festival’s professional Grand Jury.
Beginning with the 2027 edition, category specific eligibility requirements, deadlines, runtime requirements, exhibition requirements, and technical specifications are published with each annual call for entries.
Selection for the Grand Jury Competition does not guarantee receipt of the Grand Jury Prize.
Nukhufest Grand Jury Prize
The Nukhufest Grand Jury Prize is the festival’s primary professional jury distinction.
The award has been presented at every Nukhufest edition since the inaugural festival in 2016 and has been determined by rotating juries of filmmakers and film industry professionals throughout the festival’s history.
One film is selected to receive the Grand Jury Prize for each festival edition.
The Grand Jury Prize currently carries no cash award. It is a special distinction recognizing a film selected by a professional jury of its peers. If additional benefits or opportunities are associated with the Prize during a particular festival edition, they will be announced separately and do not affect the judging process.
The Grand Jury
The Nukhufest Grand Jury is appointed for each festival edition and consists of qualified filmmakers and film industry professionals.
Jurors may include qualified members of the Nukhu Foundation Board of Directors or Advisory Committee as well as invited independent filmmakers and other industry professionals.
The Foundation selects jurors based on meaningful professional experience in filmmaking, production, writing, directing, cinematography, editing, performance, programming, distribution, exhibition, criticism, arts administration, or related areas of the motion picture industry.
Nukhufest has historically used a rotating jury model. Qualified jurors may return for multiple festival editions, while new jurors may be added to broaden the professional perspectives represented in the evaluation process. Jury composition is determined for each edition based on professional qualifications, availability, independence, and the needs of that year’s competition.
Regardless of composition, each Grand Jury operates independently from the Best Nuvee audience competition and evaluates only the films eligible for the Grand Jury Prize.
Grand Jury Judging Criteria
The Grand Jury evaluates competition films using the same three core principles that guide Nukhu’s broader curatorial practice.
Concept
Jurors may consider:
Originality and strength of the central idea
Clarity of artistic intention
Storytelling or conceptual coherence
Depth, specificity, and point of view
Whether the film meaningfully develops or explores its premise
Aesthetic
Jurors may consider:
Directing
Writing
Performance
Cinematography and visual language
Editing and pacing
Sound and music
Animation, production design, or other craft elements where applicable
The relationship between creative form and subject matter
Overall command of the filmmaking process
The jury considers craft within the context of the film itself. Production scale or budget does not independently determine artistic merit.
Relatability and Resonance
Jurors may consider:
Emotional or intellectual impact
Authenticity and specificity
The film’s ability to communicate across experiences or perspectives
Cultural, social, or artistic relevance
The strength of the impression left after viewing
A film does not need to score equally across every consideration. Jurors evaluate each film as a complete work.
How the Grand Jury Decision Is Made
Grand Jury members view the eligible films in competition and evaluate them independently before deliberating as a group.
The judging criteria provide a shared framework, but the Grand Jury Prize is not determined by a rigid numerical formula.
Following deliberation, the jury selects one film to receive the Nukhufest Grand Jury Prize.
Audience voting, audience size, sales, streaming activity, social media following, filmmaker popularity, and Best Nuvee standings are not used to determine the Grand Jury Prize.
The Nukhu Foundation administers the judging process but does not substitute audience results for the decision of the Grand Jury.
Conflicts of Interest
Nukhufest is committed to an impartial jury process.
Grand Jury members are expected to disclose any professional, financial, creative, familial, or other material relationship with a filmmaker, production, or film in competition that could reasonably create an actual or perceived conflict of interest.'
A juror with a material conflict does not participate in evaluating or deciding the Grand Jury Prize as it relates to that film.
The Foundation may replace or supplement a juror when necessary to preserve the independence and integrity of the judging process.
Past Nukhufest Grand Juries
Since its inaugural edition, Nukhufest has convened filmmakers, artists, producers, directors, educators, and other qualified industry professionals to evaluate films for the festival’s Grand Jury distinction.
Nukhufest uses a rotating jury model. Jurors may return for multiple editions based on their professional qualifications, availability, and absence of conflicts of interest.
2025 Grand Jury
Sanjay Singh
Filmmaker, producer, director, cinematographer, and Founder of Nukhu and Nukhufest.
LaChelle Chrysanne
Writer, director, producer, and multidisciplinary artist.
Michael “Big Mike” Sangiamo
Entertainer, performer, host, and Director of the Nukhu Foundation.
2024 Grand Jury
Derrick Adams
Multidisciplinary artist.
Casey Stein
Filmmaker and creative professional.
Aziz Isham
Media and creative industry professional.
2023 Grand Jury
Fidel Ruiz-Healy
Filmmaker, director, and cinematographer.
Michael Shymon
Filmmaker and creative professional.
Shruti Ganguly
Filmmaker, writer, director, and producer.
Chitra Neogy
Filmmaker, artist, educator, and NYU Tisch faculty member.
Selected Earlier Grand Juries
Nukhufest’s professional jury tradition extends throughout the festival’s history, with jurors rotating among editions.
2022
Derrick Adams
Casey Stein
Aziz Isham
2016, Inaugural Grand Jury
Fidel Ruiz-Healy
Michael Shymon
Shruti Ganguly
Chitra Neogy
Additional historical jury records may be added to this archive as Nukhufest continues consolidating materials from prior editions.