Florida's Film, Television and the Arts Magazine
Florida Film Festival – Festival Closeout 2026
Based on the awards given at this year’s festival, my own personal choices are about fifty percent on the mark. Some winners were totally in-line with my favorites; some left me scratching my head.
Here’s a buffet of films I believe were, for one reason or another, exemplary, memorable, and so earned a four- or five-star rating from me. They are rich in content and should be considered for streaming services, if you happen to be a programmer. If they won any award, it will be noted in the review.
Sender was Twin Peaks-y Twilight Zone-y so I wasn’t sure which direction it was going to take. To my suspense-loving mind, that's a good thing. A recovering alcoholic (Britt Lower) receives an unending series of packages, strange items that she never ordered, from a shipping company called ‘Smirk’. Festival favorite David Dastmalchian is the Smirk deliveryman. Is he in on it? Is he flirting, very badly, to throw her off? Jamie Lee Curtis features in a disturbing cameo. (Narrative)
First They Came For My College – When Governor Desantis decided that 'woke' Florida education is what's really ruining the country, choosing to ignore actual issues like the mega-high cost of insurance in his state, he targeted a highly accredited, successful state university. One who attracted brilliant kids; teens who don’t meet his standard of blandness. First thing he did was fire their beloved Dean, then destroyed books, cancelled lines of study and denied teachers’ tenure. His new handpicked 'Board' even blocked students from voting on their own school mascot. After installing a yes-man with no experience and giving him a $700,000 paycheck, said Board began recruiting/conning/enticing/paying HS student athletes to enroll in this 're-formed' school. Understand, this is a school with no ballfields but an amazing SCUBA program. Current students and faculty saw this as a fascist takeover; it’s impossible to disagree. If you still have a pulse, you will be incensed. (Best Doc Feature/Audience)
Seized – In 2023, police raided a Marion, KS newspaper. This was an illegal raid, with illegal search and seizure, pushed by the local police force for extremely personal reasons, plus an obvious vendetta against the publisher. It’s juicy and maddening and exposes how fragile and necessary the First Amendment is to our democracy. (Best Doc Feature/Grand Jury)
The Plan – shot in one take, Director Jessica Barr allows the stories and motivations for each character to bubble up to the surface like lava and then recede. Each reveal their inherent loneliness in different ways, laying bare our most human need for community and connection. The rhythmic sounds of chaos growing outside the house are used to hype up the anxiety of her characters. (Narrative)
Ex-cop Barry Cooper sold out his brothers in blue. At least, that's how they see it in Never Get Busted Again. First, Cooper used his 'good-ol-country-boy' act to bust pot transporters. As he says, 'if someone looked like a criminal, we were gonna pull 'em over.' One day he raided the wrong home and reached the conclusion that he wasn't busting violent criminals. He was destroying lives. He flipped the dial 180 degrees, and began making videos teaching folks how to defeat cops like himself, advertising to the very crowd whose lives he had once made miserable. The soundtrack, the audacity, the flat-out 'you gotta be kidding me' attitude of everyone in the film is worth the price of admission. (Doc)
The number of trans people in this country is minute in comparision to our population; their political power negligable. Yet one party spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about, discussing and advocating laws regarding the genitals of children. You'd believe we were facing a bodysnatcher invasion in which people are storming grade schools and using mind-control to force children to have sex changes in the nurses office. What's not unsurprising is that members of this same political party are constantly in the news, being arrested for, of course, pedophilia. Participating in it, collecting it, advocating for it. There were two films in the festival who I believe attempted and succeeded in dispelling the myths that others keep trying to tie to the trans community.
One of them was Dads, a documentary. Fathers of trans kids find common ground within the organization The Dads Foundation, discuss their fears and their wishes for their offspring. They worry for their children's safety each and every single day. They're human, their kids are human, but one political party seeks to dehumanize them. The other was a Narrative short from the winner of last year's Special Jury Award. Kyle Casey Chu's Betty St. Clair is frenetic gorgeousness. One of the characters must decide if she can face what she assumes will be familial rejection of her trans identity. Both films bravely deal with the fight for acceptance in a world that, in the last few years, has turned violently against them.
Junkie was not one of my favorite narratives of the festival, but lead Rocky Shay's Stevie is the apex model for an anti-hero. There's such an overabundance of psychopathology built into her meth-addicted character, it's astounding that this is her first film role. I'm thinking that Executive Producer Patty Jenkins (Monster) may have had her talented thumb weighing on the scale, contributing more than most EP's. (Best Narrative Feature/Grand Jury and Audience)
Another short, The Last Day of Byron Bray, was so moving, so delicately and artfully shot, that it's guaranteed to be on list for Narrative Shorts for the 2026 Oscars. Under the direction of Michael Borelli, William Sadler delivers a memorable gut-punch of a performance in 20 minutes. Byron knows his life is coming to a close and asks his much younger friend (also Borelli) to bear witness to information Byron feels compelled to share. It's a film that ends with a death, but it's really about a life well-lived. (Best Narrative Short Grand Jury and Audience)
There were a number of other shorts that I hope will find their funding and be turned into long-form narratives. They were driven by characters you'll just want to revisit. These include This Blows (best babysitter ever), Somewhere To Be (exposing the ignorance of anti-immigrant hate), Dear Shop Girl (who's going to visit the store next??), Iron Lake (possible mass murderer in training), DISC (where do these unexpected lovebirds go from here??) which won a Special Jury Award for Narrative Short, and I Gaze At The Sky (so haunting, Vonnegut could have written it) which won Best International Short.
Other films have already found their distributors or deserve to be well on their way towards that: Occupational Hazard: The First Coral Reefers (Music Doc), Crystal Cross (Narrative), Cookie Queens (Doc), Poetic License (Narrative) and Chopin, Chopin! (International) a multilingual feast for the eyes and ears which featured the most gorgeous wardrobe in the entire festival and a brilliant performance by Eryk Kulm as Frederick Chopin.
My sincere thanks to all the filmmakers. You put your hearts on the line every time you release one of your children into our world.
Here is the full list of award winners: https://floridafilmfestival.com/index.php/press/release/2025-award-winners-release
