11th grade students Joe Book & Sukey Hayden from District of Columbia International School in Washington, DC won 2nd Prize in the ...
THEME: Your Message to the President
What issue is most important to you or your community? Examine your selected topic from multiple perspectives and assess what action(s) the president should take after Inauguration Day.
Announcing the StudentCam 2025 Prize-Winners!
C-SPAN is thrilled to announce the prize-winning documentaries in our StudentCam 2025 competition! This year we received entries from nearly 3,500 students from around the country.
The competition, now in its 21st year, asked students to explore and analyze matters of personal, local or national importance by addressing this year’s theme — “Your Message to the President: What issue is most important to you or your community?”
After evaluating each entry through multiple rounds of judging, we are delighted to share the 150 prize-winning documentaries, as well as the winners of the 2025 “Fan Favorite” award and our “Behind the Scenes” photo competition.
All student filmmakers and their teachers will be contacted via email with more information regarding their prizes. C-SPAN Television Networks will broadcast each of the grand prize, first prize, and second prize winning documentaries at 6:50am ET and throughout the day during the month of April. See the link above for the documentary airdates of those entries.
Thank you once again to all who participated this year and made it our best competition yet. We hope those of you with remaining eligibility will consider participating in StudentCam 2026! Our new theme will be announced this summer and the official competition launch will coincide with the beginning of the new school year.
About StudentCam
StudentCam is C-SPAN’s annual national video documentary competition that encourages students to think critically about issues that affect our communities and our nation.
In this presidential inaugural year, we asked students in grades 6-12 to create a short (5:00-6:00 minute) video documentary on a topic that related to the competition theme, “Your Message to the President.”
The submission deadline for all entries in StudentCam 2025 was Inauguration Day on Monday, January 20, 2025.
12th Grade students Emma Curry & Ashley Blanche from Jenks High School in Oklahoma won 2nd Prize in the High School Central ...
12th grade student Carson Collins from Austin, Texas won 2nd Prize in the High School West division for his documentary, "A People ...
All Grades from 6-12
This annual competition is open to all students in grades 6-12. Grades 6-8 compete in the Middle School category, and grades 9-12 compete in the High School category.
For more information about the prize divisions, visit our Prizes page.
compete individually/teams
Students may compete individually, or in teams of either 2 or 3 members.
Should your documentary win a prize, the awarded dollar amount will be split evenly among the students responsible for the production of the documentary.
CLIPS oF C-SPAN FOOTAGE
Documentaries must include clips of C-SPAN video that relate to the chosen topic.
Consider using short clips that provide historical background, additional context, or supporting and opposing ideas about how to address your topic.
viewpoints
Winning StudentCam documentaries will thoroughly explore a variety of viewpoints related to the chosen topic, including those that may oppose the filmmakers points of view.
You are welcome to share your personal point of view but you should also spend time during your documentary exploring opposing points of view. We also highly recommend that you interview experts about their thoughts on your chosen subject.
DOCUMENTARY Length
Your documentary must be between 5:00-6:00 minutes in length.
Documentaries shorter than 5:00 minutes, or longer than 6:00 minutes, will be disqualified.
*End credits (if applicable) must begin after the 5:00 minute mark and are permitted to run longer than the allotted 6:00 minute maximum time frame of your actual documentary.
CITATIONS
Entries must include either end credits or a works cited list.
You may use whichever format you currently use at your school to cite sources, but information used in your research, along with any background music or video (other than C-SPAN footage), must be cited appropriately and clearly, with links to that referenced work.
