Florida Film Festival announces awards
From MeierMovies, April 18, 2026
The 35th annual Florida Film Festival announced its awards Saturday night at Enzian Theater in Maitland.
Eleven awards were presented, including six for shorts and five for features, with several audience awards to be announced after the festival.
The Last Day of Byron Bray and Junkie were the big winners. The former, directed by Michael Borrelli, won the grand jury award for best narrative short, meaning it is now eligible for an Oscar nomination. The film also won the Matthew Curtis Audience Choice Award for best short film.
Junkie, directed by William Means, took home the grand jury award for best narrative feature and the audience award for narrative feature.
The filmmakers of Junkie accept their awards. (photos by Cameron Meier)
Other grand jury winners among the shorts were Andy and Carolyn London’s 1981 for animation and Brian Gersten’s Hollywood’s Mermaid: The Esther Williams Story for documentary, meaning those two films are also now Oscar-qualified. In addition, Blake Winston Rice’s DISC received a special jury award for “surprising intimacy,” and Joe Purtell’s Trapped took home a special jury prize for “non-fiction storytelling.”
Seized, directed by Sharon Liese, won the grand jury award for feature documentary. Valentina, directed by Tatti Ribeiro, won a special jury award for “resolute feature filmmaking.” And Patrick Bresnan’s First They Came for My College won the audience award for documentary features.
Keep in mind that dozens of festival films, including all Spotlight films, were screened out of competition.
The festival concludes tomorrow with another full day of films, culminating in a 75th-anniversary screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, at Enzian.
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