12 awards to 14 Films Across All Categories
Stills from this year’s Best Narrative Feature: Hot Water, Best Documentary Feature: Edward Said: Between Worlds, Best Environmental/Outdoor Feature: The Lake, and Best Indigenous Feature: Kikuyu Land
BEND, OR — BendFilm tonight awarded films across the competition slate, capping five days of film premieres, panels, parties and performances at the 23rd annual Bend Film Festival. 22 feature films vied for prizes across the North American Indie Competition alongside Environmental & Outdoor and Indigenous categories, curated by programmers from a global submissions pool. Jurors across multiple categories included film festival industry professionals and filmmakers alongside journalists, development and distribution executives, and festival programmers; many jurors also appeared on offscreen panels throughout the five-day Festival.
“These award winners represent the kind of bold, urgent independent cinema we’re committed to championing,” said Selin Sevinç, BendFilm’s Programming Director. “Each of these films meets the moment with artistry, authenticity, and vision. I can’t wait to see what’s next for both these stories and their talented tellers.”
Alongside laurels and trophies, many awards include direct filmmaker financial support: prize money will be distributed across competition categories. Audience Award winners will be announced in the coming week. The awards were announced as part of a banquet dinner and ceremony at Greg’s Grill, which also served as a forum for celebrating Rory Kennedy, this year’s Indie Filmmaker of the Year, and Tantoo Cardinal, this year’s Indigenous Honoree. Award-winner screenings will continue throughout Sunday as this year’s Festival’s final programming.
Without further ado, the prizewinners of the 2026 Bend Film Festival, presented alongside select citations from their respective juries, are…
NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION
The Narrative Features Competition section comprised eight outstanding fiction films presenting deeply personal stories with unique directorial vision. The 2026 jurors were Whitaker Lader, Charlie Sextro, and Sebastián Hernández.
Best Narrative Feature: Hot Water
“The jury wishes to present the award to a film that charmed our socks off. The film took us on a memorable journey across the U.S. where we were privileged to witness the prickly detours of a mother/son relationship. Although this marks the director’s feature debut, it was clear to us that this is only the beginning of a long, storied filmmaking career considering how much life and love they packed into a low-budget movie.”
Hot Water
Dir. Ramzi Bashour / USA
After he’s kicked out of his Indiana high school, an American kid and his Lebanese mom hit the road west.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION
The 2026 Documentary Feature Competition section comprised eight bold nonfiction films presenting their subjects in unflinching detail and formal innovation. The 2026 jurors were Matthew Carey, Mia Bruno and Diane Becker; they are also this year’s Environmental and Outdoor Feature jurors.
Best Documentary Feature: Edward Said: Between Worlds
“In his own words more than two decades after his death, through the archive recordings of his own voice, Edward Said: Between Worlds is a nuanced, timely, and reflective film of the complicated Palestinian identity after the war in 1948 as well as a portrait of the Palestinian academic who advocated for coexistence in a time where such voices were few and far between.”
Edward Said: Between Worlds
Dir. Maiken Baird / USA
Twenty years after his death, Palestinian scholar Edward Said guides viewers through the untold history of Palestine.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND OUTDOOR FEATURE COMPETITION
The 2026 Environmental/Outdoor Features Competition comprised three films centered on the relationships between humans and nature — by turns adversarial, exploitative, mutually beneficial and endlessly evolving.
Best Environmental/Outdoor Feature: The Lake
“What is at stake when we remain locked in a stalemate over how to address the dire state of our natural world? What would it take for a community, a government, an industry, to recognize and act on how truly desperate the situation has become? Through the riveting exploration of those frantically navigating what is at once both so imperative and so intractable, THE LAKE illuminates the powerful truth that we do not have time to waste.”
The Lake
Dir. Abby Ellis / USA
An environmental nuclear bomb looms in Utah. Two intrepid scientists and a political insider race the clock to save their home from unprecedented catastrophe.
INDIGENOUS FEATURE COMPETITION
The 2026 Indigenous Features Competition comprised three features centered on Indigenous and Native perspectives and stories from around the world. The 2026 jurors were LaRonn Katchia, Dawn Jones Redstone and Johnnie Jae, who are also this year’s Indigenous Shorts jurors.
Best Indigenous Feature: Kikuyu Land
“The issues at the center of this film reach far beyond its borders. Colonialism has shaped communities around the world, and its effects continue to influence the lives people lead and the futures they are trying to create. This film offers a powerful example of that kind of reckoning, showing that accountability can begin when we’re willing to turn the same scrutiny we apply to the world back toward ourselves.”
Kikuyu Land
Dir. Bea Wangondu and Andrew H. Brown / Kenya/USA
Kenya’s contested tea fields and the enduring legacy of colonial exploitation.
Special Jury Award for Craft: I Got Bombed at Harvey’s
“These filmmakers elevate the true crime genre through a riveting story of toxic masculinity and a patriarch’s malign control over his sons who become unwilling accomplices in a bizarre bombing plot. This entertaining film is highlighted by superb editing, an electric pace, well-lit interviews with relevant participants, seamless integration of archive and recreations that evoke Lake Tahoe in 1980 and the locus of action – Harvey’s Wagon Wheel Resort and Casino.”
I Got Bombed at Harvey’s
Dir. Bryan Storkel and Amy Bandlien Storkel / USA
1,000 pounds of dynamite. $3 million in cash. One casino at the edge of disaster.
SHORT FILM COMPETITION
The 2026 Narrative, Animated and Documentary Shorts jury comprised Daniel Crooke, Max Geschwind and Laura Henneman. The inaugural Youth Jurors were Poppy Post, Mac Schlaadt, and Cora Martin.
Best Animated Short Film: Living with a Visionary by Stephen P. Neary
“For its inventive animation and the way it uses the form to tell a story that feels both deeply personal and completely original, this film shows us what it means to love and live alongside someone whose creative drive and purpose can consume everything around them— and how the person beside the visionary has a story and perspective of their own.”
Best Comedy Short Film: The Oracle by JJ Adler
“This film had us laughing from the beginning and kept finding ways to surprise us as it went along. The premise is so simple and clever, but the ensemble — led by an all-too-recognizable character actor — had us in the palm of their hand the entire time. The sharp, confident, neurotic, and genuinely funny filmmaking demonstrates a firm grasp on telling this deeply chaotic but also resonant story about our desire for certainty and how ridiculous we can become when we’re desperate for someone, or something, to tell us what to do.”
Best Dramatic Short Film: Skin on Skin by Simon Schneckenburger
“This film announces the arrival of a major new voice in international cinema, one whose commanding control over craft and tone anchors this story’s volatile milieu with rich soulful resonance. While it’s a story of two strangers, and their emotional and physical proximity to one another, it’s also a study of the walls erected to divide neighboring nations, labor and capital, and the majority from the other. That you can practically feel the sweat on the brows of these characters speaks to the overwhelming audiovisual power that director Simon Schneckenburger imbues in every frame of this raw cry for liberation and connection.”
Best Documentary Short Film: Still Standing by Victor Suarez and Livia Albeck-Ripka
“This haunting documentary details a devastating environmental reality through an urgent and unexpected lens, not simply in its atypical focus selecting whose story to tell, and when, but through its arresting formal approach which evokes displacement, dread, and the near-invisible danger of lingering contamination. The chilling contradiction found in the filmmakers’ blend of immediacy and detachment mirrors the transformation of 9,000 homes in Altadena, California from domestic bliss to toxic abyss after quote-unquote surviving the Eaton fires of early 2025.”
Best Indigenous Short Film: First Descent: Kayaking the Klamath by Jessie Sears
“This film weaves together the generations of work following the historic removal of multiple dams on the Klamath River with the hopeful journey of the next generation of Indigenous river stewards as they navigate, and learn their relationship to this precious resource.”
Special Jury Award for Creative Vision: Dropping Off by Will Mayo and Ian Scott
“This film surprised us with its blend of comedy and drama and its unusual cinematic approach to a recognizable setting. The strong visual and editing style, combined with a wonderfully natural central performance brought both perspective and emotional weight to a fictional story that still feels like it could be unfolding, right now, in a Los Angeles neighborhood.”
Youth Jury Award for a Short Film: The Boy with the Dinosaur Head by Imran J. Khan
“This film explores the complexities of identity in a society that deems differences to be undesirable, and the impact this has on younger generations.”
BendFilm warmly congratulates all honorees, thanks all participants, audiences and sponsors, and will look forward to other year-round programming until the 2027 Bend Film Festival takes place October 6-10.