By Michael Howard
May 17, 2026
A National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Emmy nomination would be easy to treat like any other entertainment-industry milestone, but we all know it isn’t. It’s a career defining achievement. For the San Diego Film Awards’ Jodi Cilley and Rich Varville though, any recognition earned for their show is less about trophies and more about proving that San Diego filmmaking can stand with far bigger productions.
“This show – and the films and filmmakers [in it] – has proven to me [San Diego] is ready for the next step,” Cilley said during a recent interview with Vanguard Culture.
Their 2025 edition of the San Diego Film Awards – a hybrid of an awards show, comedy special, and behind-the-scenes love letter to filmmaking – earned five Emmy nominations this year, the most the program has ever received. It is the culmination of more than a decade of work that began with a simple question: how do you create a stronger local film community?
“The reason for us to do [the shows] was to identify who the high-quality filmmakers were and recognize people, celebrate our own community, have our own award show, not rely on other film festivals or other organizations to do that,” Cilley, who served as the show’s Executive Producer said, adding “Every industry has an award show.”
But not all award shows are nominated for Emmys. The nominations for the 2025 San Diego Film Awards are Overall Best Show- Jodi Cilley, Tony Amat, Giovanni Autiero, Rich Varville, Derrick Acosta, Paulina Perea; Lighting- Rich Varville; Cinematography- Rich Varville; Set Design- Duane Gardella; and Program Hosts: Marc Sylwestrzak and Eileen Bowman Sylwestrzak.
The Film Awards grew out of the Film Consortium San Diego, launched in 2012 with a goal of increasing both the quality and quantity of film work in San Diego. By 2014, the awards show had become one of its most visible public expressions. It started as a live event, eventually broadcasting on KPBS, where the ceremony would be filmed live, edited afterward, and aired weeks later.
Then the pandemic changed everything.
“We pivoted to the model that we have today,” Cilley said. “We were able to really structure it and organize it in a way that was far more entertaining and far more enjoyable for everybody. And far more production value.”
The forced move to a pre-recorded format allowed the team to rethink the show itself. Instead of a traditional, sprawling, perhaps stuffy awards ceremony, they built something more programmatically diverse: presenter segments, host sketches, and parody films stitched together into a broadcast-tight hour.
“The pain of the film awards is, like any award show, they’re super long,” Cilley said. “There’s all this walking on and walking off – you don’t have the opportunity to cut or edit.” The new version solved that problem – and caught the attention of Emmy voters. Since 2020, the show has been nominated every year.
Still, 2024 nearly broke them.
By the time post-production arrived, Cilley had reached what she called her “darkest hour.” She had been co-writing, co-directing, co-editing, and producing while juggling everything else in her career. She drove to Varville’s house with a plea. “Basically it was like, please help me finish this,” she admits.
At first, she asked for help with color correction and sound design. Then more cleanup. Then more finishing work. Then even more. “The ask kept getting bigger,” she said. “And he graciously, kindly, kept supporting me.”
Varville, who served as Director, Writer, and Producer of last year’s nominated show, often gets called in to rescue projects stuck near the finish line, recognized the problem immediately.
“This isn’t up to the quality that I know she wants due to being overextended,” he said. “This show is a representation of what we do as local filmmakers. And I’m like, this deserves to be presented the best we can make it.”
What began as a couple of days of work turned into nearly two weeks of intensive post-production, including complex screen replacements, compositing, and sound finishing. “I didn’t want to settle,” Varville says. “People underestimate the amount of time you really need to spend on your editing and your sound – to really get it the best you can instead of settling.”
That experience reshaped the following year. For the 2025 show, Varville joined in much earlier, helping direct, write, and structure the production from the start. He also brought in members of his own team, combining them with students and collaborators from around the city. By his estimate, nearly 100 people were involved.
“If people knew all of the little details of what goes into producing a show, I don’t think they could comprehend all of it,” he said. “The amount of moving parts, the amount of scheduling, the stress involved, deadlines – it’s extremely difficult.”
Ironically, both filmmakers say the awards show is harder than making a feature film.
“It’s much more difficult than doing a feature film,” Varville said. “We have a little skit, like an eight-minute short film within the show, and then various segments with our host actors, then we have all the awards, graphics, and winner speeches.” It can feel like the work never ends.
The show’s theme this past year centered on how movies are made. It walked viewers through development, pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution using comedic sketches and an intentionally playful tone. “It was kind of a little love letter” to filmmakers, Varville said. “Informative without being too technical.”
That tone matters because it also puts them at a disadvantage in Emmy competition. Unlike many regional Emmy winners—often news specials covering tragedies or emotionally heavy reporting—the Film Awards is intentionally light.
“Our show is not meant to be depressing,” Cilley said. “It’s supposed to be light.” Varville called it “basically a comedy.”
That makes the nomination for Best Overall Show feel even more significant.
“They only selected three out of the 14 that were submitted,” he said. “We’ve got a right to be excited because we put a lot of work into it.”
One of the nominations Cilley is most proud of has little to do with herself. This year, the entire production was filmed at San Diego City College, where students helped build the sets under veteran set designer Duane Gardella.
“He’s like a 70-something-year-old man who’s about to retire,” she said. “He worked in Hollywood for 25 years, worked at City College for 20 years.” For Cilley, his nomination in set design felt especially meaningful. “It’s really great for Dwayne to be able to have that recognition, especially near the end of his career,” she said.
Varville sees mentorship as part of the job.
“I think the best thing we can give back to the students is the knowledge,” he said. “When you see how excited they are, I remember being that age.”
The Emmy nominations also serve a more strategic purpose. The show airs on KPBS and streams nationally across PBS platforms, giving San Diego filmmakers visibility far beyond the local scene. “In terms of showcasing San Diego’s film community on a regional and national level, that is a big piece of what we’re doing,” Cilley said.
That visibility feeds directly into her next project: a new funding initiative aimed at producing local features rather than just celebrating them. “I did not get into this game to be producing events every year,” she said. “The end goal is to make films in San Diego.”
For now, both Cilley and Varville are content to pause the San Diego Film Awards at least for a year on a high note. “I’d like to go out on top,” she said. “This is the best show we ever produced, and I don’t even want to try to top that, because it might kill me,” she laughs.
In a city still fighting for recognition as a serious production hub, the San Diego Film Awards may be an awards show on the surface. But underneath, it is infrastructure: proof of talent, proof of community, and proof that San Diego filmmakers are capable of more than waiting for Hollywood to notice.
As Varville put it, “When you have a competition like that, I think it brings out the best of everyone.”
