2025 SFiFF AWARDS
The Votes Are In!
Santa Fe International Film Festival Announces 2025 Award Winners and Celebrates Cinematic Excellence
The Santa Fe International Film Festival (SFiFF) announced the recipients of this year's juried awards, recognizing the outstanding achievements of filmmakers across all categories. The SFiFF 2025 jury has honored these visionary creators for their exceptional cinematic craftsmanship and storytelling. This year also marks the second time the winners of the Best Animated Short, Best Narrative Short, and Best Documentary Short categories at the festival will be eligible for Oscar submission.
2025 Santa Fe International Film Festival winners:
Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient - Edward James Olmos
Icon Award - Amy Goodman
Best Narrative Feature Jury Award
Nika and Madison directed by Eva Thomas
Best Documentary Feature Jury Award
Free Leonard Peltier directed by Jesse Short Bull and David France
Special Jury Award Documentary Feature
Steal This Story, Please! directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal
Special Jury Award Documentary Feature
The Stringer directed by Bao Minh Nguyen
Academy Award Qualifying Best Narrative Short Jury Award
Nightfaces directed by Martin Winter and Stefan Langthaler
Academy Award Qualifying Best Documentary Short Jury Award
All the Empty Rooms directed by Joshua Seftel
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 directed by Hasan Hadi
Audience Choice Best Documentary Feature
Steal This Story, Please! directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal
Audience Choice Best Narrative Short
My Kind of People directed by Joe Picozzi
Audience Award Best Documentary Short
What the River Knows directed by Diego Riley and Will Buckley
Audience Award Best Animated Short
Forevergreen directed by Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears
SFiFF Jury 2025
NARRATIVE FEATURES
Alexandra Fredricks - Alexandra Fredricks handles Non-Theatrical Distribution and International Sales at Oscilloscope Laboratories. Alexandra has also been Programming and Operations Senior Manager at Metrograph and Film Screening Operations Manager at the Doha Film Institute. Over the past 15 years, she has served over the years on a number of Jury and Screening Committees, and as a talent liaison for New York Film Festival.
Danny Rubin - An award-winning screenwriter and playwright, Daniel Rubin co-wrote with Harold Ramis the screenplay for Groundhog Day, for which the two received a BAFTA Award.
Kathleen Broyles - President of the Board of The Milagro Initiative, and is a consultant to Sundance Institute, where she has worked since 1990. Broyles is also a location casting director known for productions like Honeydripper and Silver City.
Yolonda Ross - American actress, writer, director, and two-time Independent Spirit Award nominee Yolonda Ross is known for acting in The Chi, The Get Down, and Whitney.
Jhane Myers - a Sundance and Time Warner Storyteller Fellow known for film producing, Native language, Native cultural advising, acting, fine art, and most recently for the film Prey.
Cassidy Freeman - Known for her roles in television's The Righteous Gemstones, Smallville, and Longmire, actress and musician Cassidy Freeman also acted in and produced the stunning New Mexico-filmed feature length drama, Cortez.
Maura Dhu Studi - a Two-time Emmy winner for writing and producing the award-winning documentaries Canes Of Power and However Wide The Sky by Silver Bullet Productions, Maura Dhu Studi also Associate Produced and wrote narration for A Thousand Voices and Defending The Fire.
Max Geschwind - former editorial at The Hollywood Reporter and host of “The Hollywood Podcast,” Max Geschwind works at Creative Artists Agency (CAA)
DOCUMENTARY FEATURES
Sam Pollard - American film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. His films have garnered numerous awards such as Peabodys, Emmys, and an Academy Award nomination. In 2020, the International Documentary Association gave him a career achievement award. Best known for his work on Mr. Soul!, MLK/FBI, and Eyes on the Prize. Member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
Glenn Silber - an Academy Award-Nominated documentary filmmaker and long-time network television news producer who produced more than 80 primetime news stories for CBS News and ABC News, as well as several feature documentaries for broadcast on PBS. Two-time Academy-Award nominee Glenn Silber is an influential Producer, and he has directed films like The War At Home and Atomic Artist.
Kirby Dick - Academy Award nominated director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best known for directing documentary films. He received for Best Documentary Feature for directing Twist of Faith and The Invisible War.
Ricardo Acosta - an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Member and Internationally renowned Film Editor, Story Editor, Creative/Editorial Consultant, Ricardo Acosta has been working in the film industry for over 25 years. He has been awarded with an Emmy, and has been nominated several times to Genie, Gemini, CCE, and CS Awards.
Sandrine Cassidy - USC’s School of Cinematic Arts director of Festivals and Distribution, Sandrine Cassidy counsels current students and alumni on how best to work their shorts in the festival circuit. Sandrine is also the Producer of award winning shorts and features. She has been on the Tribeca Festival screening committee since 2015 and serves as a mentor for the Film Independent Global Media Makers.
Alexandria Bombach - Alexandria Bombach is an award-winning director, cinematographer, and editor from Santa Fe, NM. Her feature-length documentaries, Frame by Frame (2015), On Her Shoulders (2018), and It’s Only Life After All (2023) have earned her nominations for Film Independent Spirit Awards and numerous film festival awards. Alexandria is the founder of the Santa Fe Editing & Writing Residency, a 2019 Sundance Institute Momentum Fellow, and a 2019 Chicken & Egg Award Fellow.
New Mexico Features
Ed Khmara - Known for his work as an American screenwriter, actor, and producer. He is best known for his work on Enemy Mine, Ladyhawke and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.
Paul Lazarus - Paul Lazarus is an American director, producer and writer of film, television and theatre. He graduated from Dartmouth College, and apprenticed with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England. Known for his work as producer of Westworld (1973) and Barbarosa (1982).
Ryan Lacen - Hailing from New Mexico, Ryan is an award-winning writer and filmmaker whose first feature, The Dust Storm, was produced and sold to HULU. His follow up feature All the World is Sleeping flipped the narrative on substance abuse with a stellar cast of Melissa Barrera (In the Heights, Scream) and Jackie Cruz (Orange is the New Black); the film won the Best New Mexico Narrative Feature at 2021 SFiFF.
Amanda Lundquist - Amanda Lundquist is a director, editor and writer. She is known for her work on the recent feature film Pinsky, which won SFiFF’s 2017 Best Narrative Feature Award, as well as for television shows on PBS, A&E, and Discovery.
Members of SFiFF’s Shorts Juries
Ricardo Acosta
Tracey Adlai
Natalie Benally
Kimberley Browning
Toby Cochran
Barbara Doyle
Chris Eyre
Andy Finkelstein
Max Geschwind
David Gil
Charine Gonzales
David Greenspan
Joy Marzec
Doe Mayer
Stacey Pianko
Andy Pollack
Barr Potter
Michael Renov
Scott Rorie
Ivan Williams