The Audience Award: NEXT presented by Adobe

Trapped in museum archives, Ancestors bend time and space to find their way home. History, spirituality, and the law collide as tribal repatriation specialists fight to return and rebury Indigenous human remains, offering a revealing look at the still-pervasive worldviews that justified collecting them in the first place.

A son of one of America’s wealthiest families creates a communist revolutionary base in rural Massachusetts as a means of disrupting the capitalist system he grew up in but has now come to despise. It’s the starting point of an astonishing journey.

When three American doctors — Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian — enter Gaza to save lives, they find themselves caught between medicine and politics, risking everything to expose the truth.

Festival Favorite Award Winner

Against political resistance and industry skepticism, Luis Valdez pushes Chicano storytelling from the fields to the film screen with Zoot Suit and La Bamba, crafting iconic works that challenge, celebrate, and expand America’s story.

Against political resistance and industry skepticism, Luis Valdez pushes Chicano storytelling from the fields to the film screen with Zoot Suit and La Bamba, crafting iconic works that challenge, celebrate, and expand America’s story.

After 8-year-old Josephine accidentally witnesses a crime in Golden Gate Park, she acts out in search of a way to regain control of her safety while adults are helpless to console her.

Filmed over 10 years, one girl’s epic journey from Syria to Germany and back again. She and her family navigate war, exile, and heartbreak in a foreign land, illuminating the complexities of the refugee experience.

11-year-old Iris learns her estranged father, Aris, is back in town for his own father’s funeral. Determined to know him, Iris tracks him down to a dilapidated shipyard, where he’s been keeping to himself. What begins as a stubborn attempt to reconnect slowly unfolds into a fragile bond.

Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award: US Documentary

An archive-driven exploration of the life, work, and legacy of iconic, pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer.

US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Debut Feature

Haunted by an abusive childhood, Audrey, a Korean American woman in her 30s, faces her emotional past. When her mother’s car accident brings her back to her parents’ home, she meets the man responsible for the accident. Their relationship builds, passions ignite, and they form a loving connection.

Immersive POV camera footage reveals electric performances, candid interviews, and intimate backstage life with Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Pavement, Rancid, Beck, The Amps, and Bikini Kill — an all-access view inside an era-defining moment in music.

Over one transformative summer in rural New Zealand in 2006, 14-year-old Sid Bookman discovers desire, identity, and the internet as she imitates the people she longs to be loved by.

World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Journalistic Impact Winner

The love story of a London-based Lebanese journalist and a Syrian activist and cameraman as told through 13 years of personal archives across revolutions, war, and exile.

When runaway teen Ju-Ju is embraced by a tribe of misfit youths in Kabukicho, she finds belonging for the first time — until betrayal and despair twist her haven into a prison, and she’s left with one way to take back control.

A divorced doctor’s carefully constructed life in Cleveland is upended when his daughter’s debate aspirations and the unexpected return of a past love force him to confront his own choices and embrace a second chance.