Once again, geocachers came together to celebrate the comedy, drama, and heart-pounding action of geocaching on the big screen.

The Geocaching International Film Festival reminds us that geocaching is about the shared, universal experiences it offers. The stories of geocaching are translatable across the entire global geocaching community, no matter what language you sign the log sheet.

First, let’s do the numbers:

• There were 61 filmmakers from 21 countries who submitted a film for consideration this year.
• 20 films from 10 countries were selected as finalists.
• The final films were viewed at 634 Events across 92 countries, territories, and regions.
• Event attendees earned 16,335 (and counting!) GIFF 2025 souvenirs.
  • If you attended a GIFF Event, don’t forget to log it!

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the GIFF Award winners!

The votes have been counted, and we are excited to present this year’s film festival awards: the Signal Award and the People’s Choice Award.

The Signal Award winner is selected by a panel of geocaching community volunteers from around the world. They are asked to consider production quality, content, creativity, and contribution to the global geocaching community.

The People’s Choice Award is chosen by geocachers like you! Nearly 10,000 geocachers voted in this year’s People’s Choice Award for their favorite film.

This year, an interesting phenomenon occurred: volunteers and geocachers chose the same winner.

This year’s Signal Award and People’s Choice Award winner is…

HARD WORK by Harogs Team
(harogs, geocachingclown, and commge)

This Swiss film answered the age-old question: “How do gadget caches work?” They’re powered by tiny workers, of course! These brave employees work day and night to operate the mechanisms that power the most complex caches.

Here’s what volunteers and geocachers said:

“It was a truly unique perspective to how gadget caches work. The sets and the props used in the film were amazing and it had a bit surprising sad ending.”

“Beyond its technical achievements, the content of “HARD WORK” is inspiring. The film shifts the focus from the finder to the creator. It celebrates the often-unseen true “hard work” that goes into designing, building, and maintaining a high-quality, memorable cache. It’s a homage to the cache owners who contribute their passion and time to the community through hiding such caches.”

“Great to see how gadget caches work in the inside ;-)”

“Really great idea, brilliantly executed, even though I’m very sad that the buddy was kidnapped 🙁 I hope that all the hard work will soon be rewarded with a new buddy.”

Honorable mentions

With so many great films this year, we wanted to acknowledge some of the other popular films, as voted by volunteers and geocachers.

• The BisonBuddy5000 by Skimbosh
• If You Hide It… by Team Vlogger (geocachingvlogger and Seemyshell)
• Dogeza by _nokos_ team

Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to all the filmmakers for contributing to an amazing season of GIFF fun. Watch all the GIFF 2025 finalist films on our YouTube channel.

Finally, we’d like to issue a correction and apology to finalist JustCarlo. The GIFF 2025 title page for his film Never A Straight Path listed his location as the USA. This should have been Canada.

Thank yous all around

A huge thanks to all our filmmakers who shared their films with the global community this year. What a fantastic array of voices, ideas, and creativity!

Another big thank you to the Event hosts and behind-the-scenes volunteers who made GIFF 2025 a blockbuster hit! Take a look at some of these GIFF Events from around the world:

1. 1. More than 110 participants attended GCBBK0A, making it the largest GIFF in Saxony-Anhalt.

      

   2. Attendees at GCBDPNF rolled out the red carpet for the GIFF Gnomes at their Event in Katsdorf, Austria!

      

   3. The filmmakers behind the film “HARD WORK” co-hosted GCB3ZMK in Sarnen, Switzerland. This Event featured musical accompaniment by the pianist who composed the film’s score, and participants were able to log their experiences in the original logbook from the film!

      

   4. Despite the rain, geocachers turned out for GCBDC2V, a soggy GIFF Event in Seattle, USA. As umbrellas and coats dried, attendees enjoyed popcorn, GIFF bingo, and prizes!

      

   5. Slovenian geocachers congregated in Ljubljana to attend GCBD80Z and its after-party. Organizers conducted a thorough ranked-voting system to determine their own People’s Choice winner.

      

What’s next?

It’s time once again to press “pause” for another year. The Geocaching International Film Festival will return in 2027.

But it’s never too early to start dusting off those clapboards, brainstorming your film ideas, and practicing your camera work! We can’t wait to see what new stories the community creates next.