Announcing the 2025 Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest Winners & Honorable Mentions

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We’re thrilled to unveil the creativity of our top three winners and three honorable mentions in this year’s Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest. These remarkable films not only reimagined and transformed public domain works but also demonstrated the boundless potential of remixing creative works to create something new.

Watch the winning entries & honorable mentions below. Renowned film archivist Rick Prelinger returned to lead the jury, comprised of film professionals and enthusiasts including Simone Elias, Lara Gabrielle, BZ Petroff, and Theo Unkrich, offering insightful commentary on each selection and its standout qualities.

Explore all 140+ submissions at the 2025 Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest collection at the Internet Archive.

First Place: “When I Leave the World Behind” by Queline Meadows

https://archive.org/details/when_i_leave_the_world_behind_remix

From Rick: The jury was deeply impressed by Queline Meadows’s inspired mix of movies, images, music and text woven into a subtle and emotionally affecting video expressing a strong sense of nostalgia and the irretrievable passage of time.

Second Place: “The Archive Boogie” by Samantha Close

https://archive.org/details/the-archive-boogie

1929 was a great year for the movies! Filmmaker Samantha Close expresses both the breadth of 1929’s production and the eternal bounty of the public domain, using images from 1929’s films and public domain images from elsewhere and elsewhen.

Learn more about Close & the film in this interview.

Third Place: “THE SITUATIONSHIP” by Samara Meyer

https://archive.org/details/the-situationship

Meyer’s crowdpleasing film features the daring, dazzling “It Girl,” Clara Bow, who lights up the screen in more ways than one in this Sapphic love story.

Honorable Mention – History: “Moving Pictures Aren’t What They Used to Be” by Jeremy Floyd

https://archive.org/details/moving-pictures-arent-what-they-used-to-be

Jeremy Floyd’s enjoyable piece pays tribute to an uninhibited period of filmmaking — Hollywood before the passage of the restrictive Production Code, when movies were filled with roguish suggestion and undisguised violence.

Honorable Mention – Home Movies: “Hoffman’s Honeymoon” by William Webb

https://archive.org/details/hoffmanns-honeymoon-1

Of all film genres, home movies are the most numerous yet the least seen and known. Webb’s engaging video brings them into the foreground, adding voices from dramatic films in the public domain, to build a goofy but endearing narrative.

Honorable Mention – Live Action: “The Wayback Machine” by DIEGO DIAZ & CAN SARK

https://archive.org/details/wayback-machine-4k

Diaz and Sark’s film is an audacious and yes, dopey exploration of the essential greatness of Internet Archive and the dread near-infinity of copyright.

4 thoughts on “Announcing the 2025 Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest Winners & Honorable Mentions”

  2. Dustin K

    I think it’s awesome that The Archive puts this contest on! However, dang, I really think there were a lot of great entries that didn’t even get considered. The winners, while good examples of the freedom of expression using public domain material, were mostly highlight reels. There are many films that took public domain material and told a greater story with it, expanding the scope beyond or reinterpreting the original. Here are a few great entries that I feel were very much overlooked and I’d be curious to know what the judges thought of them!

    https://archive.org/details/space-man-public-domain-day-film-contest-2025-frick-lopez – A incredibly well produced live-action/CG film that imagines some alien being or displaced-scifi-human receiving/archiving our earthly public domain transmissions from far away in space. Maybe the slickest entry of them all with what I think (hard to say) is even a completely original soundtrack/recording of Singing in the Rain.

    https://archive.org/details/a-new-year-2025 – An clever, albeit dark, juxtaposition of classism and politics. Has a strong sense of consideration for the materials’ opposing vibes.

    https://archive.org/details/dancin-bones-oneil – A spirited, comical re-animating of the skeleton dance skeleton breaking through the fourth wall into other works of its time. This one was very fun and, again, I believe is more representative of the idea of the public domain content being and reimagined and used for something new.

    Even these two put in a lot of effort to create something new beyond a “highlight-reel” approach:
    https://archive.org/details/unstrung-fervor-1
    https://archive.org/details/a-story-of-two-cousins

    Anyhoo, I just think some of these really well done works got overlooked in the judging. Congrats to all!

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