2024 SFiFF AWARDS
The Votes Are In!
Santa Fe International Film Festival Announces 2024 Award Winners and Celebrates Cinematic Excellence
The Santa Fe International Film Festival (SFiFF) announced today the recipients of this year's juried awards, recognizing the outstanding achievements of filmmakers across all categories. The SFiFF 2024 jury has honored these visionary creators for their exceptional cinematic craftsmanship and storytelling. This year also marks the first 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.
2024 Santa Fe International Film Festival winners
Best Narrative Feature Jury Award presented by Panavision
Waltzing Matilda directed by Petr Slavík
Special Jury Award Narrative Feature
The Moon is Upside Down directed by Loren Carla Taylor
Best Documentary Feature Jury Award
The Strike directed by JoeBill Muñoz and Lucas Guilkey
Special Jury Award Documentary Feature
Zurawski v. Texas directed by Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault
Special Jury Award Documentary Feature
Between Goodbyes directed by Jota Mun
Academy Award® Qualifying Narrative Short Jury Award presented by Panavision
Camping in Paradise directed by Eirik Tveiten
Academy Award® Qualifying Documentary Short Jury Award
The Quilters directed by Jenifer McShane
Academy Award® Qualifying Animated Short Jury Award
LUKi and the Lights directed by Toby Cochran
Special Jury Award Narrative Short
Buscando Alma directed by Melissa Fisher
Special Jury Award Documentary Short
A Body Called Life directed by Spencer MacDonald
Special Jury Award Animated Short
One Happy Customer directed by WATTS
Experimental Short Jury Award
Make Me a Pizza directed by Talia Shea Levin
Best New Mexico Feature Jury Award
Sunlight directed by Nina Conti
Best New Mexico Short Jury Award
Where the Earth Meets the Sky directed by Rafael Salazar Moreno
Best Short by an Indigenous Director Jury Award
First Horse directed by Awanui Simich-Pene
Audience Choice Award for Best Narrative Feature
The Seed of the Sacred Fig directed by Mohammad Rasoulof
Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature
Mollie’s Pack directed by Thomas Winston
Audience Choice Award for Best Short Film
Jane Austen’s Period Drama directed by Julia Aks and Steve Pinder
SFiFF JURY 2024
Narrative Features
Tim Hunter - Film and Television Director Tim Hunter is known for River's Edge (1986) and Tex (1982).
Carlos Aguilar - Chosen as one of 6 young film critics to partake in the first Roger Ebert Fellowship organized by RogerEbert.com, the Sundance Institute and Indiewire in 2014. His work has appeared in prestigious publications such as Los Angeles Times, The Wrap, Indiewire, Vulture, RogerEbert.com, MovieMaker Magazine, Remezcla, Filmmaker Magazine, among others.
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.
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. He’s a 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.
Gay Dillingham - Producer/Director/Owner of CNS Communications, Gay Dillingham began making films with The WIPP Trail, narrated by Robert Redford and which aired nationally on PBS. Her work as a filmmaker and one of thirty international women delegates is represented in the 2022 documentary film, Crossings. She is currently Chair of the Santa Fe Film & Digital Media Council and Vice President of Wild Earth Guardians.
Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso - an Award-winning queer Navajo filmmaker, and a recent fellow with the Firelight Media Documentary Filmmaker Lab as well as director of the multi-award winning documentary, Powerlands.
New Mexico Features
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)
Hunter Robert Baker - Based in New York City, Los Angeles, and Navajo Nation, Hunter is an emmy Award-winning feature film, television, and commercial Director of Photography and Producer, and has also been nominated for 2 Emmy Awards.
Shaandiin Tome - Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, her breakout, award-winning short film Mud (Hashtł’ishnii) premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2018, with foreign debut showings worldwide elevating her as a writer/director. Shaandiin Tome is known for her work on short films like Long Line of Ladies, which earned the 2022 SFiFF Audience Choice Best Documentary Short Film.
Alexandra Henry - Alexandra Henry is an award-winning filmmaker with over 15 years of international experience in commercial production and branded entertainment. In 2021 her first feature-length documentary, Street Heroines, won the Best Documentary Jury Prize at the Portland Film Festival and screened at SFiFF.
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.
Short Film Jury:
Andrew Finkelstein – Emmy and Peabody award-winning editor/producer who worked on long-form documentary projects at CBS, PBS, and NBC. He spent the last three decades working on Dateline NBC.
April Webster – Emmy award-winning casting director of numerous films and television shows including Lost, Alias, Star Wars-the Force Awakens, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III, and Tomorrowland. She has worked with some of the most successful directors including multiple projects with J.J. Abrams.
Deirdre Brenner – Creative Producer on two Curious George films for Universal Animation Studios and currently a Producer on the popular adult animated series Rick and Morty. She was an animation producer at The Walt Disney Company, Nickelodeon, and Six Point Harness.
Ivan Williams – Producer of narrative and documentary feature films including the award-winning Secret Mall Apartment, How to Build a Truth Engine, and M.F.A. He produced multiple film projects for Altar identity Studios including Big Stone Gap and Knights of Badassdom. He also produced the Broadway musical First Date and the comedy web series Be Here Nowish.
Jeff McCracken – As a Producer at Walt Disney Co. he developed and directed multiple episodes of the tv series Boy Meets World and Dinosaurs. He also developed and co-produced the Oscar-nominated feature film Quiz Show. As a stage and screen actor, he appeared in numerous television shows and films including Running Bravebased on the life of Native American track star and Olympic medalist Billy Mills.
Jen Rudin – Casting Director and former casting executive at the Walt Disney Company. She is a two-time recipient of the prestigious Artios award from the Casting Society of America for her work on The Princess and the Frog and Chicken Little. She formally started the Animation V.O. department at ICM Partners and she is the author of “Confessions of a Casting Director.”
Rachel Goldberg – Award-winning filmmaker who has directed more than 40 productions for stage and screen. She has directed episodes of television shows Agatha All Along, American Horror Story, Gen V, Resident Evil, American Gods, Mayans M.C., Veronica Mars, and the Netflix pilot Grendel.
Stacey Pianko – Former Director of Casting at Disney Channel where she helped launch stars such as Shia LaBeouf, Hilary Duff, Kat Dennings, Lindsay Lohan, Kat Graham, and Kaley Cuoco. Known as the “Casting Fairy” she is a casting director and audition coach who worked on A Wrinkle in Time, Avatar: The Way of Water, and the upcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Indigenous Short Film Jury
Kiowa Gordon - An actor of Hualapai heritage, Kiowa Gordon portrays Jim Chee in the AMC series Dark Winds and is also known for his role as shapeshifter Embry Call in The Twilight Saga, as well as Junior in the TV series The Red Road.
Sisa Quispe - An award-winning director, writer, producer, and speaker, Sisa Quispe is a Quechua Aymara filmmaker. Her work aims to inspire the preservation of Indigenous cultures while sharing a decolonizing message, and she earned SFiFF’s Best Short by an Indigenous Director in 2023.
Charine Gonzales - A Producer for the Native Lens project, Charine Gonzales is known for River Bank (Po-Kehgeh) (2023), Our Quiyo: Maria Martinez (2022) and Winding Path (2024).
New Mexico Short Film Jury
Scott Rorie - Assistant Director on Love Lies Bleeding starring Kristen Stewart and AMC’s Dark Winds.
Kymon Greyhorse - Kymon Greyhorse is a Diné + Tongan + 2Spirit award-winning director, editor, and writer from Albuquerque, New Mexico. His first short film I AM HOME premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and he is also the director of the short film Can I Love You? as well as the forthcoming short film TAMAI.
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.
Erica Nguyen - As a grassroots documenteur, Erica Nguyen's interdisciplinary background in Sociolinguistics, Ethnography and Applied Language Studies at UC Berkeley frames her process around how estrangement from our origins manifests in our bodies. Erica Nguyen directed Shadow Weavers, about the endangered languages transcribed in Peruvian hats; which was awarded the Best NM Feature Documentary by SFiFF 2021.