As the 40th Santa Barbara International Film Festival comes to a close, the winning films have been chosen.
Claudia Puig, SBIFF director of programming, announced the winners on Saturday during a ceremony at El Encanto, following screenings, filmmaker Q&As, industry panels and celebrity tributes taking place throughout the city since Feb. 4.
“It’s an undeniable pleasure to celebrate such a diverse and wonderful array of winning films,” said Puig. “We have been so excited to showcase storytelling from 60 countries around the world in our slate of 185 films at SBIFF. The jury winners this year hail from Cyprus, Spain, Germany, Iran, Taiwan and the U.S. and exemplify the best of creative independent filmmaking, covering subjects ranging from immigration, pay equity, environmental dangers, unwanted pregnancy, neuroscience and hempcrete construction. Congratulations to all the winning filmmakers, and a big thank you to our dedicated jurors.”
After Zoe Saldaña received the SBIFF’s American Riviera Award this week at the historic Arlington Theatre, jury members Margaret Lazarus, Max Barbakow, Estrella Araiza, Shawn Patterson, Jeff Christian, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Gregory Nava, Andres Castillo and Jeff Arch chose the winning films
See the full list of 40th Santa Barbara International Film Festival winners below.
The Audience Choice Award sponsored by The Santa Barbara Independent
Out of Plain Sight directed by Daniel Straub, Rosanna Xia
Panavision Spirit Award for Independent Cinema
O Horizon directed by Madeleine Rotzler
The Jeffrey C. Barbakow Award for Best International Feature Film
Yen and Al-Lee directed by Tom Shu-yu Lin
The Best Documentary Award
Roads of Fire directed by Nathaniel Lezra
The Nueva Vision Award for Spain/Latin America Cinema
Glimmers directed by Pilar Palomero
The Best Animated Short Film Award
The Three Sisters directed by Timur Kognov
The Best Documentary Short Film Award
The Green Buffalo directed by Joel Caldwell
The Best Live-Action Short Film Award
Bitter Chocolate directed by Sahar Sotoodeh
These winning shorts are now eligible for the 2026 Academy Awards.
The Social Justice Award sponsored by the Fund for Santa Barbara
Separated directed by Errol Morris
The ADL Stand Up Award sponsored by the ADL
Lilly directed by Rachel Feldman
The ASC Award for Cinematography sponsored by The American Society of Cinematographers
Color Book directed by David Fortune
