SXSW Special Jury Prize “Trapped” Screens at HollyShorts

Los Angeles, CA (August 27, 2025). SXSW Special Jury Prize “Trapped” screens at HollyShorts Film Festival. Trapped is written and directed by both Sam & David Cutler-Kreutz. The film is produced by Sam & David Cutler-Kreutz, Tara Sheffer, Silvia Chen and Alex Morsanutto.

Logline: A high school janitor runs into a set of unexpected obstacles.

Sam Cutler-Kreutz and David Cutler-Kreutz double as writer and director for Trapped. Silvia Chen, Tara Sheffer and Alex Morsanutto serve as producer on the film. The cast are Javier Molina (Joaquin), Luke Cawley (Brett), Aedan Jayce (Warren), Ethan Jones (Jake), Joel Meyers (Theo), Keith William Richards (Head of School), Kamron Toosi (Tony), Matthew Woodward (Dylan)

Directors
Sam & David Cutler-Kreutz are an Oscar Nominated writing, directing & producing team based in NYC and LA. As brothers, they grew up making films together. Their first short film FLOUNDER premiered in the Clermont-Ferrand International Competition 2022. Their second A LIEN (Executive Produced by Adam McKay) was Nominated for the 97th Academy Awards. Their third short TRAPPED premiered at SXSW 2024 Narrative Shorts Competition, where it won the Special Jury Prize and Palm Springs ShortsFest Best US Short.

Producers
Silvia Chen, a dynamic film and television producer based in New York, has made significant strides in the media industry. Renowned for producing over 40 TV commercials for major brands like Audi and Sony, her work extends to award-winning music videos, notably ‘Slow / Oriental’ by Sunset Rollercoaster, which won Best Music Video at the 2019 Golden Melody Awards.

Producers
Tara Sheffer is an award-winning filmmaker from Arkansas with an MFA in filmmaking from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She has produced over twenty short films including Flounder (Clermont Ferrand Official Selection and Vimeo Staff Pick), PLAISIR (SXSW Official Selection and Searchlight Short), and line-produced THE LETTER ROOM (nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film).

Producers
Alex Morsanutto is an award-winning writer & director . Alex’s career began by cutting his teeth on hard hitting journalism, working for his local newspaper and later ABC News.

About HollyShort Film Festival
An Oscar®-Qualifying short film festival based in Los Angeles. Since its establishment in 2005, HollyShorts has grown into a premier platform for independent filmmakers worldwide. As an Academy Awards-qualifying festival in four categories, HollyShorts presents a diverse selection of innovative short films across various genres.

About BitPix
Bitpix is a streaming service for shorts films. It is accessible on over 1000 devices including iOS devices, and Android devices. Plus MACs, PCs, streaming media boxes such as Roku, Apple TV, and Chromecast. Bitpix was created by filmmakers for filmmakers. It was born and bread out of the Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival. Bitpix is your home to watch the best short films from around the world—every day. Bitpix News is your home for the latest news, reviews, and updates about these shorts featured on the platform.

HSFF provides 88th Street Productions access to over 40,000 short films and filmmakers in all genres. The Company has long standing relationships with these filmmakers, talent and entertainment industry executives. 88th Street is able to activate these relationships to source to access projects in all genres. Alta Global Media provides access to established filmmakers, executives and talent agencies.

You can comment here or on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.