Day 23 : Best Short Drama / Film
It depends what one means by "short", but to me, this means a total runtime of no more than 20 or 30 minutes. This interpretation really narrows things down.
There have been some very cute micro-episode series (reels) during 2024, but these are generally rather choppy by nature, so I'll pick a more traditional short that tells a good story:
"Happy Ending" (three episodes totalling 20 minutes) - Strongberry at its best!
Note that this is not to be confused with "Happy Ending Romance" (2022), which I had mixed feelings about.
Day 24: Best Newcomer in a Lead Role
Here as well, it depends how one understands "newcomer". Keen Suvijak was absolutely dazzling in "Only Boo!", but he's had some prior support roles, so does he count as a "newcomer"?
Same goes for Thomas and Kong in "Your Sky". They're both perfect in their roles, but Thomas has had quite a few supporting roles - and while Kong only had the tiny role in "Naughty Babe", I'm not sure whether he's a brilliant young actor or rather so adorably, sweetly, naively cute because he's just being himself (?). Haha!
Then there's Jay Sorathon, who is magically good in "Caged Again" but had a tiny role in "I Will Knock You" - so I guess he might count as a "newcomer".
But I will go with Progress Passawish (15) and Almond Poomsuwan (17) from "Love Sick 2024", who gave such astonishing, authentic first-time performances in any kind of drama. There are a lot of factors that make this an extraordinarily good school BL, but one of these is that it is cast with actual high schoolers who can act. As much as I love GMMTV, putting blue shorts on established 20-something-year-old BL stars requires me to stretch my imagination just a bit too far.