Announcing the 2023 Ohio Shorts Award Recipients

Juror's Award: Luke Riegel, CatBunny

West explained that he approached the Juror's Award thinking not only about quality of work, but about who might benefit most from receiving the accolade. So he chose this funny and remarkably knowing animated work about app dating and the social awkwardness that goes with it by Luke Riegel. A senior at Olentangy Liberty High School, Riegel plans to pursue animation as a career and will be attending Bowling Green University to study it in the fall. (Fun fact: Olentangy Liberty was also repped in the program by Youth Division filmmaker Natalie Geiser and Adult Division filmmaker Corey Aumiller, who's taught filmmaking to Riegel and Geiser.)

"This means so much to me," Riegel said. "I’m so happy. I look forward to animating more stuff in the future and I hope you all look into my work and continue to follow me… I’m floored. I don’t know what to say.”

Audience Choice Award: Joshua Nowak, Night Cafe

This gorgeous and atmospheric drama, shot at Bexley's iconic Grill & Skillet Diner, beat out some stiff competition to win over the Ohio Shorts audience. As Film/Video Studio Head Jennifer Lange noted in the award announcement, Nowak isn't the first member of his family to submit to Ohio Shorts. Joshua's father, Martin, entered his work for Ohio Shorts from 1998 and that film was presented at the Wex. In his acceptance speech, Nowak called his father "a great filmmaker and inspiration" and shared that his production company, Dominant Seventh, is named after his dad's first short. (Fun fact: if you missed our Ohio Shorts presentation, you can see Nowak's short at Cinema Columbus as part of the Local Shorts program screening this Friday afternoon at the Gateway.)

Our sincere thanks to all the filmmakers for sharing their great work, and congrats to Luke and Joshua! If you're an filmmaker shooting something new in Ohio, don't forget: the Ohio Shorts call for entries opens every year on January 1.