MovieMaker
Free Leonard Peltier, Nika and Madison Win Top Awards at Santa Fe International Film Festival
Nika and Madison, a fictional story of two Indigenous women on the run, and Free Leonard Peltier, a true story of an Indigenous man’s long fight for freedom, won the top awards at the Santa Fe International Film Festival.
Eva Thomas, who co-wrote and directed Nika and Madison, received a $60,000 Panavision camera package, $30,000 Light Iron post-production package, and a $1,000 cash prize from the festival as part of the Best Narrative Feature Jury Award. Her film follows two Native women who flee after one’s defense of the other results in a violent attack on a police officer.
Thomas said she made the film in response to poor representation of fellow Indigenous people onscreen.
“I started in this industry as an actress and I was really frustrated at the time with the kind of roles that were available to us. In L.A., we called them the ‘feather and the leather’ gigs. They wanted to put me on a horse and put feathers in my hair,” Thomas said.
The experience motivated her to learn screenwriting, producing and directing. She started at Santa Fe’s Institute for American Indian Arts.
“To have this kind of reception is unbelievably wonderful, and especially to have it here in Santa Fe is especially meaningful to me because I learned to write in Santa Fe,” she said.
She also noted all the Indigenous faces in the audience, and shared that when she was a student at AIA she met actor Gary Farmer, who helped establish the festival and previously served as its chair.
“He probably doesn’t remember it, but I do,” she said. “And over the years to have somebody like that kind of secretly cheering you on, like, ‘You can do it, go girl, you’re good!’ really means a lot.”
Sitting a few feet away, Farmer had tears on his cheeks.
Free Leonard Peltier directed by Jesse Short Bull and David France, won the Best Documentary Feature Jury Award. It tells the story of a member of the American Indian Movement convicted of killing two FBI agents in 1975. After years of protests that the evidence against him was badly flawed, he had his sentence commuted by President Biden in January.
The Academy Award-qualifying Best Documentary Short Jury Award went to Joshua Seftel’s “All the Empty Rooms.”
Accepting the award on Seftel’s behalf, producer James Costa explained that the film profiles parents of children who have lost their children to school shootings, and kept their rooms exactly as they left them.
“I would give up every award if there wasn’t another kid killed by gun violence in school,” Costa said. “Treasure life, treasure your children, treasure every moment you have, because you never know when it will be the last time.”
The Academy Award-qualifying Best Narrative Short Jury Award, presented by Panavision, went to “Nightfaces,” directed by Martin Winter and Stefan Langthaler.
The festival offered more than $100,000 in total prizes.
Santa Fe International Film Festival Winners 2025
Here is the full list of additional winners, with details provided by the festival.
Special Jury Award Documentary Feature
Steal This Story, Please! directed by Tia Lessin, Carl Deal
Recognized by the jury for its fierce commitment to independent journalism, a biography of journalist Amy Goodman and her TV show “Democracy Now,” at a time when America’s first amendment and freedom of the press are being challenged like never before.
Special Jury Award Documentary Feature
The Stringer directed by Bao Minh Nguyen
Recognized by the jury for its rigorous investigation to reveal the true author of the Pulitzer prize winning photograph of the “napalm girl” that came to symbolize the horrors of the war in Vietnam, 55 years ago.
Academy Award® Qualifying Best Animated Short Jury Award
Snow Bear directed by Aaron Blaise
Best Experimental Short Jury Award
Dieter directed by Rolf Broennimann
Best New Mexico Documentary Feature Jury Award
Dream Touch Believe directed by Jenna Naranjo Winters
Best New Mexico Narrative Feature Jury Award
In Our Blood directed by Pedro Kos
Best New Mexico Short Jury Award
Legend of Fry-Roti: Rise of the Dough directed by Sabrina Saleha
Best Indigenous Short Film Jury Award
Tiger directed by Loren Waters
Audience Choice Best Narrative Feature
The President’s Cake by Hasan Hadi
Audience Choice Best Documentary Feature
Steal This Story, Please! directed by Tia Lessin, Carl Deal
Audience Choice Best Narrative Short
My Kind of People by Joe Picozzi
Audience Award Best Documentary Short
What the River Knows by Diego Riley, Will Buckley
Audience Award Best Animated Short
Forevergreen by Nathan Engelhardt, Jeremy Spears
The Santa Fe International Film Festival is one of our 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee. You can read more of our festival coverage here.
By Tim Molloy