Name: Cinema Unbound Awards 2025
Start: 2025-05-30T18:00:00-07:00
End: 2025-05-30T21:00:00-07:00
Location: Portland Art Museum, Mark Building

On Friday, May 30, 2025, Portland Art Museum’s PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow hosts the 6th annual Cinema Unbound Awards, honoring multi-disciplinary media artists at the forefront of innovation in arts and culture. A highlight of the West Coast cultural calendar, the evening showcases internationally renowned creative polymaths who share their unbound vision in fresh and innovative ways. This year’s event honors Sarah Sherman, Marco Brambilla, Earl Ninsom, Carson Ellis, and Colin Meloy.

The evening benefits PAM CUT//Center for an Untold Tomorrow, a vital part of the Portland Art Museum dedicated to celebrating artists who defy labels or easy categorization in cinematic storytelling including film, series, audio storytelling, gaming, animation, and XR.

“PAM CUT continues its bold, boundary-pushing by honoring artists who make us feel alive with their bold writing, wild creativity, bonkers performances, and otherworldly culinary delights,” said Amy Dotson, PAM CUT Director. “We are thrilled to honor these creative forces of nature who inspire us all to use our voices and visions to push the boundaries of what’s possible and continue to challenge the status quo.”

Featuring a culinary takeover by James Beard Award–winning chef Earl Ninsom (EEM, Langbaan) and hosted by Portland-based maximalist drag starlet Violet Hex, the evening celebrates local artists, storytellers, and performers, highlighting Portland’s incredible, vibrant multi-media scene.

About the honorees

Creative Polymath: Sarah Sherman

One of the most fearless performers working today, 2025 Creative Polymath Sarah Sherman, also known by her stage name Sarah Squirm, is a comedian and cast member of Saturday Night Live, celebrated for her surreal, body-horror-inspired humor. Joining SNL in 2021, Sarah quickly made her mark with her bold, offbeat style. Known for her unfiltered, often bizarre sense of humor, her live performances are a blend of dark, absurdist comedy and vivid physicality. Sarah’s stand-up showcases her fearless approach to taboo subjects, making her a standout voice in the comedy scene with a rapidly growing fan base.

She has also contributed to other projects like Magic for Humans and Three Busy Debras, further showcasing her unique comedic voice and creativity. She is also a visual artist known for her traveling comedy show “Helltrap Nightmare.” She previously worked on The Eric Andre Show and opened for him on tour.

Sherman recently co-starred in Adam Sandler’s hit Netflix film You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, and currently performs nationwide with her stand-up comedy tour, “Live and in the Flesh.”

Astonishing Artist: Marco Brambilla

Marco Brambilla is a filmmaker and one of the most prolific multi-media artists working today. With work shown at The Sphere, Chateau Marmont, and top museums around the world (including at the Portland Art Museum in Fall 2025), his visionary approach to using new technologies and digital storytelling is seen in his ongoing work the Megaplex Series, which combines Northern Renaissance ideas around humanism with collaged Hollywood imagery to turn cinematic storytelling—and the stereotypes, visions and spin it brings—on its head.

Brambilla’s work Heaven’s Gate and select pieces from his ongoing Megaplex series will also be presented as the inaugural exhibition in the Blair New Media Gallery when the Portland Art Museum opens after its transformational expansion and renovation project on November 20, 2025. His hyper-saturated, kaleidoscopic large-scale installations push the boundaries of what’s possible in cinema and media arts, referencing the hyper-modern and ancient images of storytelling and remixing them into a lavish and satirical take on the silver-screen spectacle of Hollywood dreams and excess.

Portrait of a man with short brown hair, a red and grey beard, and black eyeglasses

Spectacular Storytellers: Carson Ellis & Colin Meloy

Portland-based collaborators Carson Ellis and Colin Meloy are the duo behind the wildly successful young adult book series Wildwood Chronicles.

Colin Meloy is a writer, a musician, and a songwriter and perhaps best known as the singer and songwriter for the twice Grammy-nominated Portland, OR, band, The Decemberists. He is also the New York Times bestselling author of five books for middle-grade readers, including the award-winning Wildwood Chronicles. The first in that series, Wildwood, is being adapted as a stop-motion animation feature by LAIKA Studios which is set to release in 2026.

Carson Ellis is the author and illustrator of the bestselling picture books Home and Du Iz Tak?, a Caldecott Honor book, and the recipient of an E.B. White Read Aloud Award. She has illustrated a number of books for kids including The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, The Composer Is Dead by Lemony Snicket, and The Wildwood Chronicles by her husband, Colin Meloy. Carson has been awarded silver medals by the Society of Illustrators for her work on Wildwood Imperium and on Dillweed’s Revenge by Florence Parry Heide. She’s the illustrator-in-residence for Colin’s band, The Decemberists, and received Grammy nominations in 2016 and 2018 for album art design. She works occasionally as an editorial illustrator for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. She also exhibits paintings and is represented by Nationale in Portland.

Portrait of a smiling man with eyeglasses and a maroon beanie on

Tastemaking Trailblazer: Earl Ninsom

Earl Ninsom was only 8 years old when he cooked his first dish: a simple rice-and-pork porridge he prepared for his mother when she fell ill. He hasn’t left the kitchen since. Today critics regard the Bangkok, Thailand–born restaurateur among the most talented chefs/restaurateurs in Portland, Oregon, where he helms a small empire of nationally acclaimed Thai restaurants—including EEM, Langbaan, Hat Yai, Paadee, Phuket Cafe, and the recently opened Yaowarat.

Both The Oregonian and Portland Monthly crowned EEM as restaurant of the year in 2019, Langbaan in 2014. GQ ranked Langbaan second on its list of the “25 Most Outstanding Restaurants of 2015.” Hat Yai landed on USA Today’s “Top 10 Best New Restaurants” in 2016. Recently opened Yaowarat was named the 2023 restaurant of the year by Portland Monthly. In 2024, Langbaan won a James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant. Before opening his first restaurant in 2008, Ninsom—who holds degrees in marketing and economics—traveled the world pursuing a career in international business.

The Event

Aerial acrobat hanging upside down in a ring inside of a ballroom.

The Cinema Unbound Awards 2025 event is participatory and immersive, and attendees can look forward to special guests and talent from around the globe. The Cinema Unbound Awards will take place May 30, 2025, in the Portland Art Museum’s Kridel Grand Ballroom.

Proceeds from the Cinema Unbound Awards benefit PAM CUT’s year-round youth programs, artist services, and exhibitions—directly supporting the programs that embrace artistic exploration and contribute to a more vibrant, accessible, and diverse media-arts ecosystem.

Past honorees at PAM CUT’s Cinema Unbound Awards include artists, filmmakers, actors and innovators including multi-media storytellers Sterlin Harjo, Phil Lord & Chris Miller, Todd Haynes, and Garrett Bradley; artists Mickalene Thomas, Steve McQueen, and Shirin Neshat, as well as shapeshifting performers and creators such as John Cameron Mitchell, Tessa Thompson, Carrie Brownstein & Fred Armisen, and chef Gregory Gourdet.

Presenters have included Academy Award Best Picture winners Bong Joon-ho and Chloé Zhao, as well as artists Celine Dion, Isabella Rossellini, Charles Burnett, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alessandro Michele, and Justin Vivian Bond.

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Cinema Unbound Awards 2025