Finding Humor in Mortality: “The Second Oldest Man Alive” Earns Top IndieX Honor at September Edition

From haunting meditations on mortality to psychological horrors rooted in family and memory, the September 2025 edition of IndieX Film Fest continues to celebrate bold, emotionally charged storytelling from around the world. This season’s standout works explore the fragile ties between life and legacy, the ghosts of war and grief, and the quiet obsessions that shape humanity. The top award winners include The Second Oldest Man Alive by Jeremy Max (USA), Kinfolk by Andre Dixon (USA), and The Mortician’s Daughter by Elwood Quincy Walker (USA).

IndieX Film Fest is proud to announce The Second Oldest Man Alive, directed by Jeremy Max (USA) and written by Ryan Delouya, as the Best Short of the Season (Special Jury Award) winner for September 2025.

The 20-minute short — produced by Jeremy Max and Ryan Delouya — stars veteran actor Gerry Bamman and stood out for its sharp blend of humor and poignancy — a quiet reflection on aging, legacy, and the human desire to leave a mark, no matter how arbitrary the measure.

A Story About Time, Legacy, and a Touch of Absurdity

While reading a book of world records with his great-grandchildren, William Bennett discovers that the world’s oldest man is just a few days older than he is. What begins as a lighthearted curiosity turns into an obsessive mission: if he can just outlive the other man, he might secure a small but tangible piece of immortality.

Through this simple but powerful premise, The Second Oldest Man Alive transforms a statistical record into a deeply human quest — one that’s both humorous and existential. The short gently probes how people define their worth, what they cling to as proof of having mattered, and how humor often masks the fear of time running out.

An Award-Winning Vision from Jeremy Max

^{Jeremy Max, director of The Second Oldest Man Alive}

Director Jeremy Max, an award-winning filmmaker from Long Island, New York, brings a distinctive voice to the story — one that balances intimate character study with philosophical undercurrents. A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (2019), Max has directed narrative projects, music videos, commercials, and social media campaigns, shaping a diverse creative portfolio that fuses cinematic craft with emotional clarity.

In interviews, Max has described his fascination with “finding the absurd inside the ordinary.” The Second Oldest Man Alive perfectly embodies that ethos — its tone shifting seamlessly from gentle comedy to existential melancholy, capturing both the absurdity and grace of growing old.

A Powerful Central Performance

At the film’s heart is Gerry Bamman, whose decades-long career includes acclaimed roles in film (Home Alone, Law & Order, The Bodyguard) and stage. As William Bennett, Bamman delivers a nuanced performance full of quiet humor and fragile dignity. His presence anchors the film — embodying a man confronting mortality not with despair, but with a stubborn and endearing determination.

Why It Resonated with the IndieX Jury

IndieX jury praises The Second Oldest Man Alive for its elegant storytelling, emotional precision, and tonal mastery, along with its ability to turn an absurd premise into a deeply moving meditation on time and meaning.

The film’s restrained cinematography, warm production design, and understated score all serve to enhance its reflective mood, while its tight editing and confident pacing allow the audience to dwell on every beat of William’s quiet struggle.

By receiving this award, The Second Oldest Man Alive advances to the 2026 IndieX Film Fest Annual Awards in Los Angeles.

Additional Standout Winners – September 2025 Awards of Excellence

Desert Haunting — Kinfolk by Andre Dixon (USA)

Set against the desolate backdrop of 1970s California, Kinfolk plunges into the psychological horror of memory, guilt, and inherited trauma. The story follows Charlie, a Vietnam War veteran tormented by unseen forces, and Leanna, a young Native American woman seeking refuge at his remote desert ranch. What begins as a tale of shelter and survival soon unravels into something far more chilling — a haunting where the ghosts of war are not merely metaphors, but living echoes of pain that refuse to stay buried. With its deliberate pacing and eerie atmosphere, Kinfolk evokes the mood of classic 1970s horror cinema while grounding its supernatural menace in deeply human emotion.

Behind the camera is Andre Dixon, an emerging filmmaker whose work bridges psychological realism and the supernatural. A writer and director with a talent for crafting atmospheric worlds, Dixon’s previous shorts — Solo, The Haunting of Pottersfield, and The Curse of Abigail Proctor — each explore isolation, grief, and the shadows left by personal and collective loss. His distinct visual language and sensitivity to character have earned him recognition for creating horror that feels both timeless and intimate. With Kinfolk, Dixon makes his pilot debut, expanding his creative universe into a series concept that reimagines the classic anthology spirit for contemporary audiences — stories where family bonds become both a source of comfort and a vessel for dread.

“At its core, Kinfolk is about family and trauma — about how the people closest to us can be both our greatest comfort and our deepest fear,” Dixon explains. By setting the story amid California’s vast and unforgiving desert, he turns the landscape itself into a metaphor: a place haunted not only by spirits, but by the weight of history and silence. Kinfolk is ultimately a meditation on survival — of memory, of spirit, and of the fragile ties that bind us to the past. It stands as one of the two standout recognitions in IndieX Film Fest’s September 2025 Awards of Excellence — a haunting, skillfully crafted work that highlights Andre Dixon’s confident approach to genre storytelling.

Family Remains — The Mortician’s Daughter by Elwood Quincy Walker (USA)

In The Mortician’s Daughter, grief takes a chilling turn inside the dim corridors of a family funeral home. Following the death of her mother, Violet faces an unthinkable request — to embalm her own parent’s body. As she carries out her mother’s final wish, long-buried memories resurface, and the boundaries between duty, love, and horror begin to dissolve. What begins as an act of farewell unravels into a confrontation with the past — and the revelation of a dark family secret that refuses to stay buried. Led by a gripping performance from Hannah Barefoot, with Bonnie Aarons (The Nun, The Conjuring 2, Mulholland Drive) bringing her trademark intensity, the film balances emotional vulnerability with bone-deep dread.

Behind this haunting vision is Elwood Quincy Walker, a filmmaker whose name has become synonymous with bold, atmospheric horror storytelling. Raised in California on a steady diet of Blockbuster Video, Halloween, and the golden age of practical scares, Walker turned his childhood obsession into a career remarkably early — signing as a commercial director at just 13. Since then, he has built a diverse body of work in narrative and branded content, collaborating with major entertainment studios such as Universal Studios Hollywood, Disney Parks, and Blumhouse, while refining a visual style defined by precision, tension, and emotional intensity.

The Mortician’s Daughter reflects Walker’s evolution from prodigy to mature storyteller — a filmmaker who understands that the scariest stories are the ones rooted in love, loss, and legacy. The film’s atmosphere is claustrophobic and deeply unsettling, its horror derived not from the corpse on the table, but from the memories Violet cannot contain. Disturbing and psychologically charged, The Mortician’s Daughter stands out for its craftsmanship and its unnerving exploration of grief and inheritance.