2025 Sarasota Film Festival have announced their winners and one film Especially will pay attention to having shown a lot of praise in this light red county and finally win the best documentation award: Kim A. Snyder’s “Librarians,” A film that sounds strong about right -wing attacks against freedom of speech, won the best documentary function, after screening at New College, a university that himself was subjected to a right -wing and attacks against freedom of speech.
The winnings for ”The librarians” Caps another edition of the festival Known for its strong curation (largely due to senior programmer Brian Gordon), which gives Florida’s Gulf Coast titles from Sundance, Cannes, Palm Springs, Mill Valley and more.
The documentary jury, consisting of freelance journalist Addie Morfoot, Impact Partner’s co -founder Gelalyn Dreyfous and “Lovers” director Taylor McFadden also awarded a special jury mention to Sasha Wortzel’s “River of Grass”, an environmentally focused documentary on Ever.
The narrative jury, of which this writer was part, together with the submarine founder Josh Braun, documentary Jill Campbell and “Godfather of Harlem” writer Michael Panes, gave the best story about Ricardo de Montreuil’s Peruvian food -porn triumph “Mistura.” We also awarded a special jury mention to David Fortunes Atlanta-Set “Color Book”, about a black father who handled grief over his wife’s passing and tried to be the best father he can to his son with Down syndrome.
Participants of the festival are still mostly thinking about an extraordinary performance Denver-based musician Nathaniel Rateliff gave after a show of his partner Taylor McFadden’s film “Lovers” as the closing night selection (this author moderated the after-show after screening). It is a tribute to how music can help power and maintain a society, one that comes together after one of their own death, which took his own life.
The day before the extraordinary final screening and performance, prizes were personally awarded to Harmony Korine, who won the Trailblazer Award; Chris Brancato (“anesthetic,” “Godfather of Harlem”) who won Innovation in Television Award; Rome Flynn, which plays in “Godfather of Harlem” Season 4, as Frank Lucas (memorably played by Denzel Washington in “American Gangster”), got The Rising Star Award.
Kayci Lacob’s “Book of Jobs” won the Independent Vision competition. Ian Edward Meir’s “Tigers of the Sky” was the documentary short racing winner, and the new Chamberss won the story’s short competition for his “My Guardian Angel.” Chamberss, a beginner in high school, won everyone’s hearts with their completed filmmaking about the death of her best friend from cancer. Her father, Jerry Chambless, the owner of Sarasota -based Illum Productions, showed up on my “Filming in Florida” panel over the weekend.
Narrative Audience Award went to Jessica Palud’s Maria Schneider Biopic “Being Maria”, with “Mickey 17” Breakout Anamaria Vartolomei. And the Documentary Audience Award went to Miles Larsen’s “The Light they threw” about eight imprisoned Sararasota men who stood for life after prison.
The 10-day festival was lively from start to finish, with a hoard of teenage boys swarming korine for his autography-one fan was dressed like Matthew McConaughey in “The beach bum,” Another presented sky I with a skelatal efficiency Don’t usually fuck with movie, but you’re my fucking hero “-submarine Founder Josh Braun Playing the Bongos at the Ever-Wild President’s Host of Festival Overlord Mark Famiglio, a look from trailblazing model” for a song that he wrote for The party.
The “librarians” who win the best documentary functional award and are greeted with a warm reception at New College is perhaps the biggest news -tasting event of the party. New College, Long A Liberal Bastion and one of the most LGBT-friendly universities in Florida, was subjected to a right-wing tip by Governor Ron Desantis 2023.
Snyder’s film “The Librarians” is about shooting back on book ban and other right -wing movements to limit freedom of speech, including the shooting two years ago, by a librarian who worked at New College. Its Sarasota premiere at New College is an important moment of pushing back that government overreacting and proposes that actual freedom of speech may be possible at New College in a non-distant future, not just a certain type of government sanction.
The “librarian” director Snyder told IndieWire at the festival to be able to screen its film at a college where such a battle had taken place – in Sarasota, which is closely linked to VAT for the Liberty group shown in the film – was critically important.
“It is honestly one of the most important things that forced me to come to Sarasota,” Snyder said. “This is a place that has a lot of diversity in the sense of a lot of different viewpoints. In thinks it gets a bad rap in Certain Ways. I have a college roommate who lives here, and I did the form of Help Restore A Space of Civic Dialogue. SO TO HAVE OUR Screening Happen On The Campus Where Hundreds of LGBTQ BOOKS WERE CAKE AND THROWN INTO DUMPSTERS, and be able to push back against it is the extraordinary.
The full list of 2025 Sarasota Film Festival The winners are below.
Jury prices
Winner of narrative function competition
“Mixture”
Director: Ricardo for Montreuil
Winner of Documentary Functioning Competition
“The librarians”
Directors: Kim A. Snyder
Narrative function jury specially mention
“Color Book”
Director: David Fortune
Documentary Feature Jury Special Mention
“Grassy river”
Director: Sasha Wortzel
Independent visions competition winner
“Book of Jobs”
Director: Kayci Lacob
US narrative short racing winners
“My guardian angel”
Director: Ammagle
Documentary short competition winner
“The Tigers of Heaven”
Director: Ian Edward Meir
Audience prices
Winner of narrative audience award
“Being Mary”
Director: Jessica Palud
Winner of Documentary Audien Award
“The light they throw”
Director: Miles Larsen
2025 Sarasota Film Festival Jury
Narrative feature jury
Christian Blauvelt, Digital Director, IndieWire
Jill Campbell, director (“Beyond The Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue”)
Josh Braun, co -founder, submarine
Michael Panes, author (“Godfather of Harlem”)
Documentary jury
Addie Morfoot, Variety and New York Times Contributors
Gelalyn Dreyfous, Academy Award-Winning Producer & Co-Founder, Impact Partners
Taylor McFadden, Director (“Lovers”)
