Bend Film Festival Prizes Go To ‘Hot Water,’ ‘Edward Said: Between Worlds,’ ‘Kikuyu Land,’ ‘The Lake’ & More

The Bend Film Festival wraps on Sunday after presenting awards for the 23^rd edition of the cinematic spectacle in central Oregon.

Ramzi Bashour’s debut feature Hot Water, starring Lubna Azabal (Coriolanus), Daniel Zolghadri (Funny Pages), and Dale Dickey (Widow’s Bay), won Best Narrative Feature. The filmmaker, born in Lebanon and based in New York City, crafts an offbeat road trip movie involving a mother and son “stopping at diners, motels, and hot springs” in the American West.

The jury, comprised of Whitaker Lader, Charlie Sextro, and Sebastián Hernández, wrote Hot Water “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.”

In Documentary Feature Competition, the top prize went to Edward Said: Between Worlds, director Maiken Baird’s portrait of the late Palestinian scholar and activist. The film traces Said’s journey from Mandatory Palestine (then under British control) to exile with his family in Egypt after the 1948 Nakba and establishment of the state of Israel, and his eventual relocation to the U.S. where he became a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University in New York. After the 1967 Arab Israeli war and Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, Said became a leading voice for the Palestinian cause.

The documentary jury, comprised of Oscar winner Diane Becker (Navalny), Mia Bruno, and myself, wrote, “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.”

Documentary jurors presented a Special Jury Award for Craft to I Got Bombed at Harvey’s, directed by Bryan Storkel and Amy Bandlien Storkel, a rollicking story of a man with a grudge and a thousand pounds of dynamite with which to exact vengeance on his perceived enemy at a Nevada casino.

“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,” we wrote. “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.”

The doc jury also selected a winner in the 2026 Environmental/Outdoor Features Competition, choosing from among nonfiction films “centered on the relationships between humans and nature — by turns adversarial, exploitative, mutually beneficial and endlessly evolving.” The top prize there was awarded to The Lake, directed by Abby Ellis, a film exploring the environmental catastrophe posed by the rapidly shrinking Great Salt Lake in Utah.

“What is at stake when we remain locked in a stalemate over how to address the dire state of our natural world?” the jury wrote. “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.”

In the competition for Best Indigenous Feature, the prize went to Kikuyu Land, directed by Bea Wangondu and Andrew H. Brown. That film, set in Kenya’s contested tea fields, examines “the enduring legacy of colonial exploitation.”

“The issues at the center of this film reach far beyond its borders,” wrote the Indigenous Feature jury, comprised of LaRonn Katchia, Dawn Jones Redstone, and Johnnie Jae. “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.”

In a statement, BendFilm Programming Director Selin Sevinç noted, “These award winners represent the kind of bold, urgent independent cinema we’re committed to championing. 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.”

The festival, which opened Wednesday, October 7 and closes Sunday, presented its Indie Filmmaker of the Year Award to Oscar-nominated director Rory Kennedy. She brought two of her films to Bend – The Trial of Alec Baldwin and Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing.

Actress Tantoo Cardinal was named BendFilm’s Indigenous Honoree. The star of Killers of the Flower Moon, Dances With Wolves, Black Robe and many other films was born in Alberta, Canada and is of Cree and Métis heritage.

The 2027 Bend Film Festival is set to unfold from October 6-10.

These are additional prizes award at the 2026 Bend Film Festival:

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 [selected by jurors LaRonn Katchia, Dawn Jones Redstone, and Johnnie Jae]: 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 Offby 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 Headby 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.”