Press Release

Vimeo, the world’s largest ad-free open video platform, today unveiled enhancements to its Staff Picks Best of the Year awards initiative, as well as the chosen nominees for 2018. For the first time ever, the platform has invited an external panel of celebrated industry leaders to serve as jurors in selecting the seven best Staff Picks of the year. The Best of the Year jurors are detailed in this release and include Tony-winning actor & producer Alan Cumming, writer & producer of Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse Phil Lord, 7x world champion surfer Stephanie Gilmore, New York Times inaugural “52 Places” journalist Jada Yuan and Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams. Vimeo also announced that each award recipient will receive a cash prize and a physical Staff Pick Best of the Year trophy, in addition to the coveted Staff Pick Best of the Year badge.

Honoring the best films on Vimeo since 2008, the Staff Picks channel recently celebrated its tenth anniversary and currently features over 13,000 exceptional videos handpicked by Vimeo’s in-house curation team. Vimeo’s Best of the Year awards started in 2016 as a way to recognize and honor the best of the best Staff Picks and standouts in storytelling, originality and craft. As in years past, the Vimeo curation team narrowed the Best of the Year nominees down to 93 exceptional videos, from over 1,200 Staff Picks selected this year. New this year, an external jury of distinguished creators (including the 2017 winners for each respective category), industry experts and thought leaders will determine which of the nominated films best exemplify the categories and will be Staff Picks Best of the Year award recipients. Best of the Year categories include: Best of Action Sports, Best of Animation, Best of Comedy, Best of Documentary, Best of Drama, Best of Eye Candy and Best of Travel.

Best of the Year award recipients will be announced on January 17, and the winning films will be screened at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, Brooklyn that evening.

Details on the award nominees and jurors follow below. For more information about Vimeo’s Best of the Year awards, please visit here.

Vimeo’s 2018 Staff Picks Best of the Year Nominees:

Best of Action Sports

• Tsirku - Eric Crosland, Tim Symes
• Dean Goes Surfing - Caitlyn Greene
• Brendan Howey - RAW 100 - Rupert Walker
• Two Nineteen Forty Four - Tristan Greszko
• Griffin Gass / Pacific Standard Time - Ben Ericson
• RJ Ripper - Joey Schusler, Ben Page
• A GoPro Adventure in Les 3 Vallees - Claudiu Voicu
• Olas X: A Big Wave Surf Film - Scott Nichols
• Space - John John Florence, Erik Knutson
• Seeking Nirvana 3.2 - Hard Nose the Highway - Mike Henitiuk, Joe Schuster, Matt Margetts, Riley Leboe    
• MÚKÙNE - Arthur Bourbon, Damien Castera
• The Shadow Campaign // Ski Photographer - Frank Pickell
• Soft - Christian Haller, Kris Lüdi

Watch the nominated Best of Action Sports films here: https://vimeo.com/channels/bestactionsportsof2018

Best of Animation

• Waves '98 - Ely Dagher
• Le Futur Sera Chauve / The Bald Future - Paul Cabon
• What Is Beauty? - Anna Ginsburg
• Stems - Ainslie Henderson
• Xylophone - Jennifer Levonian
• Life Cycles - Ross Hogg
• DIY - Volume 1 - Isaiah Saxon, Sean Hellfritsch
• Ugly - Nikita Diakur
• Black - Tomek Popakul
• Dinner For Few - Nassos Vakalis
• JEOM - Kangmin Kim
• In the Distance - Florian Grolig  
• The Shivering Truth - Vernon Chatman, Cat Solen

Watch the nominated Best of Animation films here: https://vimeo.com/channels/bestanimationsof2018

Best of Comedy

• Cecile on the Phone - Annabelle Dexter-Jones
• Fly Safe - Noah Malone
• Mountain Fever - Frédéric Hambalek
• Mixtape Marauders - Peter Edlund
• The Loaf Zone - Christopher Rutledge
• Love Is Blind - Dan Hodgson
• An Emmy For Megan - Megan Amram
• The Dreamer - JEAN
• The Climb - Michael Angelo Covino
• Enough - Anna Mantzaris
• Latched - Justin Harding, Rob Brunner
• Women Are Mean - Doron Max Hagay
• Metta World Teeth - LAMAR+NIK          
• Pussy / Cipka - Renata Gasiorowska

Watch the nominated Best of Comedy films here: https://vimeo.com/channels/bestcomediesof2018

Best of Documentary

• Alone - Garrett Bradley
• Field of Vision - Concussion Protocol - Josh Begley
• I Have A Message For You - Matan Rochlitz
• Cucli - Xavier Marrades
• The Wild Inside - Andrew Michael Ellis
• Little Potato - Wes Hurley, Nathan M. Miller
• Ivry - Jake Oleson
• A View From the Window - Chris Filippone
• My Dead Dad's Porno Tapes - Charlie Tyrell
• American Psychosis - Amanda Zackem
• Skip Day - Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan
•  I Was A Winner - Jonas Odell

Watch the nominated Best of Documentary films here: https://vimeo.com/channels/bestdocumentariesof2018

Best of Drama

• Slapper - Luci Schroder
• Forever Now - Kristian Håskjold
• Phone Story - Graham Mason
• The Boyfriend Game - Alice Englert
• Intercourse - Jonatan Etzler
• Prends-Moi - Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, André Turpin
• Joy In People - Oscar Hudson
• Drug Runner - Charlotte Regan
• Incel - John Merizalde
• The Turk Shop - Bahar Pars
• Fauve - Jeremy Comte
• Primo - Federica Gianni      
• Thick Skin - Erlendur Sveinsson

Watch the nominated Best of Drama films here: https://vimeo.com/channels/bestdramasof2018

Best of Eye Candy

• Young Marco - Trippy Isolator - Rop van Mierlo
• Salvage - Dirk Koy
• Arena - Páraic McGloughlin
• Windows - Jason Allen Lee
• Winter Time - A Hyperlapse Film - Juraj Prostinák
• Aperture - Emanuele Kabu
• Lattice - Maria Constanza Ferreira
• Coexist - Michael Marczewski
• One minute of miniatures - Clemens Wirth
• Influencers - f°am Studio
• Trapped Summer - Peter Tomaszewicz
• Optics - Maxim Zhestkov
• Portals - Vladimir Tomin
• The Wormhole - Timelapse 4K - Michael Shainblum
• ΔNOMΔLY - Jacco Kliesch      
• "__/__/__" - Claudia Barral

Watch the nominated Best of Eye Candy films here: https://vimeo.com/channels/besteyecandyof2018

Best of Travel

• Russia - Pete R.
• Vhils - debris, Macau 2017 - Jose Pando Lucas
• Sun Moon London - Luke Miller
• Barcelona - Hannah Lau-Walker
• Sand in the Sky - Dana Saint
• Tune in New York - Lukas Willasch
• CATS! A Travel Music Video - Andrew Norton
• Seoul_wave - Brandon Li
• Marfa - The Brothers McLeod
• Still/Life - Josh Hayward
• Operation Jane Walk -Robin Klengel & Leonhard Müllner  
• My Trip to Japan - Dante Zaballa

Watch the nominated Best of Travel films here: https://vimeo.com/channels/besttravelof2018

Vimeo’s 2018 Best of the Year Jury Members:

Best of Action Sports Jury

Stephanie Gilmore

Stephanie Gilmore is a 7-time world surfing champion who has dominated women's professional surfing since she entered the scene in 2007 - winning her first world title as a rookie, followed by 3 consecutive world titles - an accomplishment no other surfer has achieved.

Tom Wallisch & Dave Mossop

Tom Wallisch’s freeskiing career has landed him in major video parts and on the podium of countless slopestyle competitions. In 2017, with Sherpas Cinemas director David Mossop, he won the Action Sports Best of the Year award for their film “Imagination.”

Stefan Janoski

Stefan Janoski is an American professional skateboarder, artist, writer, filmmaker and musician, who is well known for his signature Nike SB shoe model, the "Nike Zoom Stefan Janoski."

Best of Animation Jury

Julia Pott

Julia Pott is a British animator and illustrator living in Los Angeles. Her award-winning films have screened at festivals worldwide including Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca and Annecy. She is the creator of the original series “Summer Camp Island” on Cartoon Network.

Steve Cutts

Steve Cutts is a British animator, illustrator and the 2017 Animation Best of the Year award winner for “Happiness.” His work satirizes the excesses of modern society and includes the online viral short “Man,” collaborations with “The Simpsons” and celebrated music artist Moby.

Phil Lord

Phil Lord is ½ of a writing, directing, animating and producing duo with Chris Miller who have racked up huge hits in both animation (The Lego Movie, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs) and live action (the 21 Jump Street franchise). Lord most recently wrote and produced Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse.

Best of Comedy Jury

Tim Mason

Tim Mason is a filmmaker, actor, and writer. In 2017, he won the Comedy Best of the Year award and the Best Narrative Short award at Slamdance for his film “No Other Way To Say It.” Tim's independent pilot, “Work in Progress”, will be premiering this year at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Missy Laney

Missy Laney is the Director of Development at Adult Swim. Previously she worked at BitTorrent Inc leading their film strategy and Sundance Institute growing their #ArtistServices Initiative.

Sarah Schneider

Sarah Schneider is an eight-time Emmy Award™ nominated writer and producer. Her series “The Other Two,” which she co-created, co-wrote and executive produced with Chris Kelly will premiere on Comedy Central in 2019. Schneider was previously a writer for SNL and Netflix's “Master of None.”

Best of Documentary Jury

Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck

Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck direct and produce award-winning, feature-length documentaries and short films, including their Oscar® shortlisted and Emmy nominated film "Ten Meter Tower,” which won the Documentary Best of the Year award in 2017.

Roger Ross Williams

Roger Ross Williams is an award-winning director, producer and writer and the first African American director to win an Academy Award®, with his short film “Music By Prudence.” His feature Life, Animated (2016) was also nominated for an Academy Award®.

Gina Duncan

Gina Duncan is the Associate Vice President, Cinema at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) where she is responsible for providing strategic and artistic direction for BAM’s first-run and repertory film program as well as its film festival, BAMcinemafest.

Best of Drama Jury

Monia Chokri

Monia Chokri is an actor, director and winner of the 2017 Drama Best of the Year award for “An Extraordinary Person.” She has acted in more than 30 movies including Heartbeats from the director Xavier Dolan. Her feature directorial debut La femme de mon frère will be released in 2019.

Alan Cumming

Alan Cumming is an award-winning Scottish-American actor, singer, writer, producer, director, and activist who has appeared in numerous films, television shows, and plays. His best-known film and television roles include the Sky Kids trilogy, X-Men 2, Goldeneye, and The Good Wife.

Reinaldo Green

Reinaldo Marcus Green is a native New York writer, director, and producer. His first feature film, Monsters and Men, won the Special Jury Award for Outstanding First Feature at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Reinaldo is currently directing the Netflix series “Top Boy."

Best of Eye Candy Jury

Johan Rijpma  

Johan Rijpma won the Eye Candy Best of the Year Award in 2017 for “Extrapolate.”  Based in the Netherlands, his work portrays simple subjects from his daily surroundings in an experimental and playful way. His work has received multiple awards and is internationally screened and exhibited.

Soda Jerk

Soda_Jerk is a 2-person art collective who work at the intersection of documentary and speculative fiction. Interested in the politics of images - how they circulate, whom they benefit, and how they can be undone - their works have been exhibited in festivals, cinemas, museums and torrent sites.

Jeff Hamada

Jeff Hamada is a Japanese Canadian artist living and working in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2008, he created Booooooom, which quickly became one of the largest art blogs on the Internet.

Best of Travel Jury

Sean Wang

Sean Wang is a filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. He was recruited to join the Google Five, a team of five young creatives from around the world who are invited to collaborate on projects to help blend technology with creativity and storytelling. In 2017 he won the Travel Best of the Year award for his film “3,000 miles.”

Jada Yuan

Jada Yuan is the inaugural 52 Places Traveler for The New York Times. Before that, she was a longtime feature and culture writer for New York Magazine, Vulture, and The Cut. She is from New Mexico. When not on the road, she lives in Brooklyn.

Chris Burkard

Chris Burkard is an accomplished explorer, photographer, creative director, speaker, and author. He travels to pursue the farthest expanses of earth, capturing stories that inspire humans to consider their relationship with nature, while promoting the preservation of wild places everywhere.

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