ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — The Asheville chapter of The 48 Hour Film Project, an international competition which challenges independent filmmakers to write, shoot and complete an entire short film in 48 hours, has announced their nominees in 18 different categories in advance of an awards ceremony next weekend.

The 2025 Asheville 48 Hour Film Project Awards Ceremony will be held at 1 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 6 in the Pack Memorial Library Auditorium, 67 Haywood St.

48 hours to make a film

Every year, registered 48 Hour Film Project teams are tasked with creating a film in their city in exactly two days. While teams can shoot wherever they want and with however many actors they desire, there are a couple of guidelines they must adhere to, selected by each location’s City Producer.

Raúl Acosta, the Asheville City Producer, determined that his teams must incorporate:

Character: Mike or Michelle Langevin, an environmental scientist
Line: “Do you know what I’m thinking?” or “Do you know what I am thinking?”
Prop: a vinyl record

Additionally, each team is randomly assigned two film genres which they can pick between or combine.

“They can pick or mix them,” Acosta said. “One of them got superhero/road movie and they mixed both. They got a couple superheroes, and put it on a van and just hit the road.”

Acosta said that there were 16 teams who received at least one nomination across the 18 different awards up for grabs in this year’s competition. The winner of Best Film at the Sept. 6 ceremony will go on to Filmapalooza, the 48 Hour Film Project annual international film festival, where each winning film will be screened in competition for the title of Grand Champion. Filmapalooza 2026 will be held at the end of March in Lisbon, Portugal.

Not every Asheville filmmaking team is made up of movie industry professionals. Acosta said that the 48 hour endeavorers come to the competition from all walks of life.

“There’s people who actively are filmmakers in their everyday life. There’s people who are something entirely different, from engineers to software developers, that just like filmmaking and have been involved with it, like as a hobby or a passion,” Acosta said. “They take this weekend to advocate for their passion, do a film.”

Raúl Acosta has been on both sides of the 48 Hour Film Project, having made his own 48 hour film and produced the Asheville competition.

Making a movie in only two days may seem like an absurd exercise, but Acosta, who has now participated in and produced the competition, said that there is nothing else like it for filmmakers looking to improve their cinema skills.

“One thing that I learned from myself is that sometimes growth comes from being out of a comfort zone. So, if you’re working on something for a few months, a few years, you know where you’re headed, right?” Acosta explained. “But if you throw yourself in the middle of the game, okay, you got to make a movie this, this and that, it really gets your brain and your creative juices flowing. And a lot of people afterwards are like, wow, I didn’t expect to make this film, and I did it.”

This year, the nominees for Best Film in Asheville are “A Brother’s Ballad” by Stout Brothers, “Blue Skies” by Team Long Shot, “Dinner Party” by Titus Touch Media and “A Little Encouragement” by Act One. For a full list of the nominees, visit the Asheville 48 Hour Film Project on Facebook.

For more about the 48 Hour Film Project, visit www.48hourfilm.com.