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
NIGHT 2 – THURSDAY, MAY 29TH
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
NIGHT 2 – THURSDAY, MAY 29TH