These Must-See Movies Captured Montclair Film Festival Awards

MONTCLAIR, NJ — Movie buffs in Montclair now have a new list of must-watch flicks after a popular local film festival declared its 2026 award winners.

Winners of the Montclair Film Festival’s competitions were announced Monday.

“We are incredibly grateful to all of the artists who shared their films with our audiences at this year’s festival,” Montclair Film artistic director Tom Hall said.

“The connection these films forged with our festival audiences created an incredible atmosphere of conversation, connection and community,” Hall said.

FEATURE FILMS

This year’s festival featured three categories for its juried feature film awards: Fiction, Documentary, and Future/ Now.

The winners were:

• POSSIBLE LOVE directed by Lee Chang-dong, was awarded the festival’s Fiction Feature Prize
• REHEARSALS FOR A REVOLUTION directed by Pegah Ahangarani, was awarded the festival’s Bruce Sinofsky Award for documentaries
• BEDFORD PARK directed by Stephanie Ahn and THEYDREAM directed by William D. Caballero jointly won the Future/Now Competition, honoring early career filmmakers

SHORT FILMS

Montclair Film also announced the winners of the festival’s Short Film competitions on Monday. The winners included:

• I SAW YOU IN THE FLOOD directed by K. Xian Ming Yu won the festival’s Fiction Short Film Competition.
• BUCKSKIN directed by Mars Verrone, won the festival’s Documentary Short Film Competition.
• US BEING EPIC directed by Jeannette Louie won the festival’s New Jersey Shorts Competition. The Competition featured films in the fiction and non-fiction categories from New Jersey.

AUDIENCE AWARDS, JUNIOR JURY PRIZES

Meanwhile, the nonprofit spotlighted several other films with its “Audience Awards” and “Junior Jury” prizes. They included:

Audience Awards

• WILD HORSE NINE, directed by Martin McDonagh, for Fiction Feature
• MY NDA, directed by Juliane Dressner and Miriam Shor, for Documentary Feature
• ALL OF A SUDDEN, directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, for World Cinema
• AN UNKNOWN SUBSTANCE, directed by Steven Leckart, for Short Film

Junior Jury

The 2026 Montclair Film Festival’s Junior Jury included 15 area high school students representing 14 schools.

The Junior Jury awarded their top prize to MOUSE directed by Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson.

A Special Jury Prize for Excellence In Cinematography was awarded to Senzo Ueno for his work on LOOK BACK, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda.

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