The Tallahassee Film Festival proudly celebrated another outstanding year of independent cinema, welcoming filmmakers, artists, and audiences from around the world for four days of screenings, live events, workshops, and community. The 2026 festival featured more than 80 films across five screens, showcasing the work of emerging voices, student filmmakers, regional storytellers, and internationally acclaimed artists.
Festival award winners were announced during the Awards Ceremony on Sunday, October 11, recognizing exceptional achievements across the festival’s feature and short film programs.
A Special Festival Premiere
One of the most memorable moments of the 2026 festival came during the Awards Ceremony itself with the premiere of Outside, a short film directed by filmmaker Michael Curtis Johnson.
The project grew directly out of Johnson’s Acting for the Camera workshop hosted during the festival weekend. Working with workshop participants, Johnson wrote, filmed, and edited the short entirely on-site during the festival, casting participants from the workshop and transforming the experience into a collaborative filmmaking exercise. The completed film received its world premiere screening during the Awards Ceremony on Sunday, October 11, giving audiences a unique look at what can happen when filmmakers come together to create in real time.
Featuring Jimmy Maguire, Valerie Jones Rash, Ariston Ackerman, Soleil Ackerman, Alex Chew, Daniel Dumas, and Peyton Schuler.
Looking Back at 2026
The festival was also proud to present a diverse lineup of feature films, including Opening Night selection Frogtown by Costa Karalis, Centerpiece Film Take Me Home by Liz Sargent, and Closing Night Film Nova ’78.
Thank you to all of the filmmakers, volunteers, sponsors, partners, workshop leaders, musicians, and audience members who helped make the 2026 Tallahassee Film Festival such a memorable celebration of independent film. We congratulate all of this year’s award winners and look forward to welcoming everyone back next year.
Florida Filmmaker Award
($1,000 Cash Prize, sponsored in part by Flamingo Magazine)
Spencer Levy
Andre
When a young man unexpectedly inherits a small fortune, he drifts through a series of surreal encounters that become a dreamlike journey through the overlooked corners of Tallahassee and the people who inhabit them.
Andre is my attempt to reveal the quiet beauty of Tallahassee and the marginalized, often forgotten people and places that shape it. I was inspired to make this film to bring those overlooked stories into focus and to show the city has a heartbeat, a pulse. This is my love letter to Tallahassee and all that resides within it.
– Spencer Levy
About the Filmmaker
Spencer Levy is a Cuban-American filmmaker from Florida whose work foregrounds marginalized people, places, and histories. His films blend intimate storytelling with a strong visual sensibility, bringing overlooked narratives into focus and challenging audiences to reconsider the forgotten.
Directors’ Choice Award
($500 Cash Prize)
I’m Going to Be a Diamond Someday
Directed by Jeremy Drummond & David Poolman
Frank Newsome was born in Pike County, KY in 1942 and was one of twenty-two children who grew-up in the Old Regular Baptist Church. Following in the footsteps of his father, Frank worked as a coal miner and after almost two decades in the mines, contracted black lung and was forced to retire.
I’m Going to be a Diamond Someday combines an intimate interview with Frank Newsome with footage captured throughout the towns and coalfields of central Appalachian; both before, and after the catastrophic floods of 2022. Issues of family, faith, community, and politics are explored through the realities of economics, industry, and climate change.
Frank Newsome is a highly celebrated preacher and singer of traditional lined-out hymns who lives in Haysi, VA. He is an elder in the Little David Old Regular Baptist Church in Vansant, VA and performs regularly at venues such as the Richmond Folk Festival in Richmond, VA. In 2006, John Lohman and Jim Lauderdale recorded his album Gone Away with a Friend and in 2011, was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
-IN MEMORY-
Elder Frank Lee Newsome
November 15, 1942 – August 31, 2026
About the Filmmakers
Jeremy Drummond is an artist, filmmaker, field recorder, and educator whose work spans film, video, photography, sound, and installation. Positioned between documentary and experimental media, his practice is rooted in long-term fieldwork and interdisciplinary research that explores the cultural, historical, and social relationships between people and place. He teaches experimental film, video art, and alternative media at the University of Richmond.
His work has been exhibited internationally at museums, galleries, and film festivals including Hot Docs, Kassel DokFest, Interfilm Berlin, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, and Anthology Film Archives, among many others. Drummond’s films have received numerous awards and grants, and he also curates Frames of Reference, an annual program showcasing innovative artists working in film, video, and alternative media.
David Poolman is an artist working in drawing, sound, video, print media, and sculpture. For the past 25 years, Poolman has screened work in festivals and exhibited in galleries both nationally and internationally. Selected festivals include European Media Arts Festival (Germany), Chicago Underground Film Festival (Chicago, IL), Festival der Nationen (Austria), X Film Festival Chileno Internacional (Santiago), ECM Videoformes (Clermont-Ferrand), Videolisboa 5 (Lisbon), and Video-Film-Tagen Thuringen & Rheinland-Pfalz, (Gera). Poolman lives in Toronto and is an Associate Professor of Drawing and Sound in the joint Art and Art History program at the University of Toronto (Mississauga)/Sheridan College.
Best Feature Film
Frogtown
Directed by Costa Karalis
A genre-breaking, reality-bending debut feature about a woman determined to prove the existence of a magical swamp creature she befriended as a child. Set in a tiny Florida town of dreamers, the film blurs truth and fiction in an exploration of wonder, belief, and community.
About the Filmmaker
Costandinos “Costa” Karalis is a first-generation Middle Eastern American filmmaker based out of Atlanta, GA. His work explores the gray area where the worlds of the fantastic and the mundane meet, a theme he hopes will inspire audiences to reflect on their own circumstances and laugh at the absurdities of this strange life we all share. His short films have played around the world and, most notably, have been recognized by BAFTA-LA, CamerIMAGE, NFFTY, and the Cannes Film Festival. Frogtown is his first feature film and his strangest project yet.
Best Debut Feature
Carter Country
Directed by Bobby Buccellato
Carter Country follows the two-year journey of America’s most unlikely Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and his small town that followed him every step of the way. This documentary seeks to capture the forgotten spirit of 1976, the last great Presidential election of the 20th century, when a small town in Georgia suddenly became the political capital of the world.
About the Filmmaker
Bobby Buccellato is the writer and director of the new documentary Carter Country. Buccellato is the author of eight books, co-host of the Florida History podcast, and a special assistant for the American Presidency project.
Best Dramatic Feature
Hekla
Directed by Michael Glover Smith
Over the course of one chaotic day, a determined Chicago actress races through auditions, heartbreak, and self-doubt while trying to claim her voice and fully embrace her future as an artist.
About the Filmmaker
Michael Glover Smith is a Chicago-based filmmaker, author, and college professor. His most recent feature, the award-winning Relative, stars Wendy Robie (Twin Peaks) and is distributed by Music Box Films. It was the 23rd highest-grossing movie in the U.S. during its first week in release in 2022. His other work includes Mercury in Retrograde (2017), starring French film icon Roxane Mesquida, Rendezvous in Chicago (2018), and Cool Apocalypse (2015). His first book, Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the U.S. Film Industry (Columbia University Press, 2015), co-written with Adam Selzer, is an acclaimed non-fiction study of film production in Chicago during the silent-movie era. His second book, Bob Dylan as a Filmmaker: No Time to Think, was published by McNidder & Grace in 2026.
Best Narrative Feature
Take Me Home
Directed by Liz Sargent
An intimate portrait of Anna, a Korean adoptee caring for her aging parents amid a brutal Florida heat wave, as she confronts questions of family, disability, identity, and independence.
About the Filmmaker
Liz Sargent is a Korean-American adoptee and filmmaker whose work explores adoption, disability, and family dynamics. With a background in choreography, she brings emotional depth to her storytelling, shaped by her experience growing up as the middle child of eleven. In 2026, Sargent received the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Lighthouse Award at the Lumen Awards for her debut feature, Take Me Home. A two-time NY EMMY winner (2020 & 2021), she is also a HALF Initiative Mentee (2022 & 2023), an MSSNG PCES AICP Mentee (2023), and an NBCU Launch Director (2024–2026). Her debut narrative short, Strangers’ Reunion (2019), a personal adoptee story produced by Ritz-Carlton and Hearst under the mentorship of Mike Figgis, was released worldwide in six languages.
Sargent’s proof-of-concept short Take Me Home premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (2023), won the 2024 Grand Jury Prize at the American Cinematheque PROOF Film Festival (2024), and was featured at the White House for the 25th Anniversary of the Olmstead Act. Sargent later expanded the project into her debut feature, which won AT&T Untold Stories, the largest production prize in the world at the Tribeca Film Festival. Take Me Home premiered in U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival with an international premiere at the Berlinale in Perspectives competition.
Best Documentary Feature
Hunky Jesus
Directed by Jennifer Kroot
A vibrant documentary celebrating San Francisco’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, whose mission of joy, compassion, and radical inclusion shines through intimate interviews, archival footage, and coverage of the iconic Hunky Jesus competition.
About the Filmmaker
Jennifer M. Kroot (Producer/Director) is a seasoned documentary filmmaker. Her feature documentary, The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin premiered at the 2017 South by Southwest Film Festival, and won the Documentary Spotlight Audience Award. Untold Tales was broadcast on Independent Lens, and screened theatrically in several U.S. cities. Her previous documentary, To Be Takei, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed through Starz Digital Media. Her feature documentary It Came From Kuchar premiered at the 2009 South by Southwest Film Festival. Kuchar had a robust theatrical life, then was broadcast on the PBS documentary series, Truly CA.
Kroot is a producer and an executive producer on Christine Yoo’s documentary film, 26.2 To Life (DOC NYC 2022), which was licensed by ESPN. Kroot is a Bay Area native and studied film at The San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) with her mentor, George Kuchar. She taught filmmaking at SFAI from 2012-2015. She has written and co-curated an article for the SF Bay Times called, “Out of Left Field.” Kroot is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Best Short Film
No Time to Think: Bob Dylan as Filmmaker
Directed by Ben Creech
A freewheeling video essay exploring Bob Dylan’s under-examined work as a filmmaker, inspired by Michael Glover Smith’s book on Dylan’s cinematic legacy.
About the Filmmaker
Ben Creech is an experimental human, whose work often abandons discipline in hopes of capturing the movement of thought. Originally from Louisville, now in Chicago, their films have a tendency to explore difference and repetition, tracing the lines that connect the particular to the infinite. They’re also interested in forms of ricochet, where the past repeats itself and the image returns, often engaged as sampling. Ben also designs and produces esoteric cinephile merch, is finishing work on a study of Louisville born amateur auteur William Girdler, and digging through attics and trenches in search of lost films.
Best Narrative Short
Sudden Death
Directed by Andrew Moore
Thirty-something takes and three hours later, a team of filmmakers has one final chance at success, or else it will all have been for nothing.
About the Filmmaker
Andrew Moore is a writer, director, editor, and production coordinator currently based in Tallahassee, Florida. He’s had a history of directing low-budget short films for his YouTube channel, Fresh Shrim Productions, and has recently stepped back to help as an assistant director in other local projects.
Still, when a project is ripe with opportunity, Andrew will stick with it until he’s seen his vision finished. The movies he makes are ambitious, bold, and scrappy, with each one being a step up from the last. He’s a risk-taker, willing to do whatever he needs to find a home in the film industry.
Best Comedy-Drama Short
Kitty
Directed by Lizzie Hart & James Newman
Neurodivergent Kitty, lover of trinkets and Kate Bush, finds her favourite jumper ruined and must find a replacement. When the perfect jumper seems unattainable, she’s left with one choice: sell her precious collections, or risk losing the jumper forever.
About the Filmmakers
Lizzie Hart is an emerging writer and director, passionate about bringing untold stories to the screen, with humour, complex-characters and a whole lot of heart. She is a recent Theatre and Performance Studies graduate from The University of Warwick, and was the 2025 comedy recipient of The Pitch Film Fund, which awarded her significant funding and support to help her create her first short film, Kitty.
James Newman is an award-winning writer and director working in dark comedy and character-driven storytelling, whose films have screened at BAFTA- and Oscar- qualifying festivals. He has worked in post-production and development at companies including Molinaire and Stolen Picture, and is a BAFTA Connect member and member of Directors UK.
Best Comedy Short
Becoming
Directed by Aidan Forte
In 1969 at St. Patricks Seminary a devout young priest-in-training will do anything to keep his contraband porno mag from being discovered — and the secret contained within.
About the Filmmaker
After getting stabbed in the eye at 7, Aidan knew he was destined to be a surgeon saving lives — that is until he threw up during a pig dissection. Since then he’s taken on an equally vital role as a filmmaker. Born in Los Angeles and a graduate of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Aidan has found himself lost in places around the world, with his favorite being Tanzania, Japan, and Italy — where he discovered the expression “MADONNA!” and has been using it ever since.
As a critically unacclaimed director and writer, Aidan believes comedy is the lens that brings our collective, often awkward and humiliating humanity into focus as something beautiful. Which is to say that the longing to be wanted, to be special, to matter in some small and stupid way, is itself the story worth telling.
Best Dramatic Short
Tesoro
Directed by Samuel Correa
A coming-of-age drama about David, a Colombian immigrant boy staying at the Chateau motel in Panama City Beach, Florida, who must find his place in a world that doesn’t entirely feel like home.
About the Filmmaker
Samuel Correa is a Colombian-born filmmaker and the first in his family to step behind the camera. He immigrated to South Florida at age nine and is now a graduate of the Florida State University College of Motion Picture Arts BFA program. He is currently writing his next short.
Best Documentary Short
No Time to Think: Bob Dylan as Filmmaker
Directed by Ben Creech
A freewheeling video essay exploring Bob Dylan’s under-examined work as a filmmaker, inspired by Michael Glover Smith’s book on Dylan’s cinematic legacy.
About the Filmmaker
Ben Creech is an experimental human, whose work often abandons discipline in hopes of capturing the movement of thought. Originally from Louisville, now in Chicago, their films have a tendency to explore difference and repetition, tracing the lines that connect the particular to the infinite. They’re also interested in forms of ricochet, where the past repeats itself and the image returns, often engaged as sampling. Ben also designs and produces esoteric cinephile merch, is finishing work on a study of Louisville born amateur auteur William Girdler, and digging through attics and trenches in search of lost films.
Best Science Fiction / Fantasy Short
Saba
Directed by Liron Topaz
In an abstract world where gravity is reversed, a grandfather and grandson share a unique bond until a violent storm tears apart both their home and their life together. After suffering a devastating loss, the boy embarks on a poetic journey through grief, searching for closure while confronting questions of love, separation, and moving forward.
About the Filmmaker
Liron Topaz is an award-winning director, supervising animator, and former Animation Department Chair at DreamWorks Animation. Liron fell in love with Animation at a very young age. His professional journey began at Ringling College of Art + Design, where he was selected by the Academy of Motion Pictures as one of only three students in the United States to intern at Sony Pictures Imageworks. After graduating with honors, he joined Sony to work on Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland before becoming a key creative force at DreamWorks Animation.
Best Suspense / Thriller Short
Sudden Death
Directed by Andrew Moore
Thirty-something takes and three hours later, a team of filmmakers has one final chance at success, or else it will all have been for nothing.
About the Filmmaker
Andrew Moore is a writer, director, editor, and production coordinator currently based in Tallahassee, Florida. He’s had a history of directing low-budget short films for his YouTube channel, Fresh Shrim Productions, and has recently stepped back to help as an assistant director in other local projects.
Still, when a project is ripe with opportunity, Andrew will stick with it until he’s seen his vision finished. The movies he makes are ambitious, bold, and scrappy, with each one being a step up from the last. He’s a risk-taker, willing to do whatever he needs to find a home in the film industry.
Best Local / Regional Film
River Obscura: Secrets of a Blackwater River – Episode 2
Directed by Sammy Tedder
A visually rich exploration of the unique ecosystems, history, and mysteries found along Florida’s blackwater rivers.
About the Filmmaker
Sammy Tedder and his wife Sandy live in a remote cabin on the Sopchoppy River in the Eastern Panhandle of north Florida. Sammy has been a professional musician for more than 50 years, producing several albums of his original instrumental compositions and has performed on numerous other artists albums including Tom T. Hall and Rita Coolidge. Tedder has also composed soundtrack music for several Florida nature films that have been featured on PBS.
In recent years he has produced three nature films about the Sopchoppy River and the surrounding wild places where he lives. He is the cinematographer, film editor and composer of the soundtrack music for these films and utilizes various genres of music—from Native American style flutes to jazz saxophone—to highlight his experiences in north Florida’s rapidly changing wild environments. Sammy Tedder’s most recent film River Obscura: Secrets of a Blackwater River – Episode One received the 2024 Tallahassee Film Festival’s Audience Choice Award for Best Local/Regional Film.
Best First-Time Filmmaker
Frogtown
Directed by Costa Karalis
A genre-breaking, reality-bending debut feature about a woman determined to prove the existence of a magical swamp creature she befriended as a child. Set in a tiny Florida town of dreamers, the film blurs truth and fiction in an exploration of wonder, belief, and community.
About the Filmmaker
Costandinos “Costa” Karalis is a first-generation Middle Eastern American filmmaker based out of Atlanta, GA. His work explores the gray area where the worlds of the fantastic and the mundane meet, a theme he hopes will inspire audiences to reflect on their own circumstances and laugh at the absurdities of this strange life we all share. His short films have played around the world and, most notably, have been recognized by BAFTA-LA, CamerIMAGE, NFFTY, and the Cannes Film Festival. Frogtown is his first feature film and his strangest project yet.
Best Student Film
Echoes of Smoke: The Erasure of Smokey Hollow
Directed by Raniah Michelle Braclet
Before Cascades Park became one of Tallahassee’s premier public spaces, the area was home to Smokey Hollow, a close-knit, working-class Black community. This documentary explores how the neighborhood was displaced amid efforts to reshape the capital city’s image, while preserving the stories of the residents and community leaders working to keep Smokey Hollow’s legacy alive.
About the Filmmaker
Raniah Braclet is a Gulfport, MS native and a graduate of Tougaloo College, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications with an emphasis in Public Relations and Advertising. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Strategic Communication at Florida State University, alongside a certificate in Digital Video Production. Driven by a passion for storytelling, Raniah aspires to lead campaign development for nonprofits and small businesses, helping them translate their unique visions into impactful realities.