SXSW Announces 2022 Grand Jury & Special Awards Winners: ‘I Love My Dad’ Wins Narrative Feature Prize

South By Southwest organizers have announced the 2022 recipients of all Jury and Special awards for the Austin festival. Audience awards are still being decided, and you can vote for your personal favorite SXSW films if you saw them online or at the festival between now and the morning of Monday, March 21st.

Out of the 99 feature films, 111 short films, and even more music videos, series pilots, and more making their premieres at the festivals, these are the big winners that caught the attention of the SXSW jury of professional filmmakers and film critics.

The top winners of the Feature category were comedy I Love My Dad, which stars Patton Oswalt going to great lengths to bond with his estranged son, and the documentary Master than Light, which profiled painter George Anthony Morton. It Is In Us All won a special mention for Extraordinary Cinematic Vision, which was apparently a bold new take on a psychological thriller by writer/director/star Antonia Campbell-Hughes.

Along with the many memorable feature films screened at the festival, there were some great shorts highlighted by the Jury Awards as well. The big winner of the Narrative Short competition was All The Crows In The World, written and directed by Tang Yi, which was also honored with the Short Film Palme D’or at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s described as a surreal and sharp black comedy that showed huge directorial confidence by Yi.

Other short film highlights were the doc Long Line of Ladies described as a “tapestry of beautiful cinematography and vivid character moments,” and the “spine-chilling” Midnight Shorts winner Moshari from Bangladeshi director Nuhash Humayun.

The festival also handed out special awards which included craft recognition like Cinematography and Editing, and more special commendations like the Fandor New Voices award and Louis Black “Lone Star” Award, which both went to the documentary What We Leave Behind, which shows the health decline of filmmaker Iliana Sosa’s elderly grandfather.

A full list of winners is available below:

NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION
Winner: I Love My Dad
Writer/Director: James Morosini, Producers: Bill Stertz, Patton Oswalt, Sean O’Grady, Dane Eckerle, Phil Keefe, Daniel Brandt, Sam Slater

Special Jury Recognition for Extraordinary Cinematic Vision: Cast and Crew, It Is In Us All

Special Jury Recognition for Breakthrough Performance: Elizaveta Yankovskaya, Nika

FEATURE DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Winner: Master of Light
Director: Rosa Ruth Boesten, Producers: Roger Ross Williams: Anousha Nzume, Ilja Roomans

Special Jury Recognition for Exceptional Intimacy in Storytelling: Bad Axe. Director: David Siev, Producers: Jude Harris, Diane Quon, Katarina Vasquez, David Siev.

Special Jury Recognition for Acting in a Documentary: Steve Glew, Pez Outlaw

NARRATIVE SHORT COMPETITION
Winner: All The Crows in the World
Writer/Director: Tang Yi, Producer: Haozheng Li

Special Jury Recognition for Directing and Community Filmmaking: Glitter Aint Gold
Director/Screenwriter: Christian Nolan Jones, Producers: Maia Miller, T. Poppos, O. Valerie Nicolas

Special Jury Recognition for Outstanding Performances: Aphrodite Armstrong, Kyle Riggs, West by God

SHORT DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Winner: Long Line of Ladies
Directors: Rayka Zehtabchi, Shaandiin Tome, Producers; Garrett Schiff, Pimm Tripp-Allen, Rayka Zehtabchi, Sam Davis, Dana Kurth

Special Jury Recognition for Visual Reflection: not even for a moment do things stand still
Director: Jamie Meltzer, Producers: Annie Marr, Jamie Meltzer, Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg

MIDNIGHT SHORTS
Winner: Moshari
Writer/Director: Nuhash Humayun, Producers: Bushra Afreen, Nuhash Humayun

Special Jury Recognition for Powerful “Short Trip”: Omi
Director: Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, Screenwriters: Tamar Bird, Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, Producer: Tamar Bird

ANIMATED SHORTS
Winner: Bestia
Director: Hugo Covarrubias, Writers: Martín Erazo, Huga Covarrubias, Producers: Tevo Díaz, Hugo Covarrubias

Special Jury Recognition for Unexpected Emotion: Les Larmes de la Seine
Writers/Directors: Yanis Belaid, Eliott Benard, Producer: Carlos De Carvalho

Special Jury Recognition for Visceral Storytelling: Something in the Garden
Writer/Director/Producer: Marcos Sánches

MUSIC VIDEOS
Winner: Desirée Dawson – “Meet Me at the Light”
Director/Screenwriter: Alexander Farah

Special Jury Recognition for Going the Extra Mile: Myd – “Let You Speak”
Director/Screenwriter: Dan Carr

TEXAS SHORTS
Winner: Folk Frontera
Directors: Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn

Special Jury Recognition for Vision: Birds
Writer/Director: Katherine Popper, Producer: Sophia Loffreda

TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL SHORTS
Winner: Honeybee
Writer/Director/Producer: Emilio Vazquez Reyes

Special Jury Recognition for Artistic Expression: It’s Getting Bad Again
Writer/Director: Sarah Rayes, Producers: Sarah Reyes, Kenneth Rogers

EPISODIC PILOT COMPETITION
Winner: Something Undone
Director: Nicole Dorsey, Writers: Michael Musi, Madison Walsh, Producers: Max Topplin, Jordan Hayes

Special Jury Recognition for Unique Vision in Writing and Directing: Pamela Ribon and Sara Gunnarsdóttir, My Year of Dicks

POSTER DESIGN COMPETITION
Winner: More Than I Remember
Designer: Yen Tan, Maya Edelman

Special Jury Recognition: The Sentence of Michael Thompson
Designer: Juan Miguel Marin

TITLE DESIGN COMPETITION
Winner: Foundation Title Sequence
Designer: Ronnie Koff
Company: Imaginary Forces

Special Jury Recognition: The White Lotus Title Sequence
Designers: Katrina Crawford, Mark Bashore
Company: Plains of Yonder

XR EXPERIENCE COMPETITION
Winner: On the Morning You Wake (To the End of the World)
Directors: Dr. Jamaica Heolomeleikalani Osorio, Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Pierre Zandrowicz, Arnaud Colinart, Writers: Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Jamaica Heolomeleikalani Osorio, Producers: Arnaud Colinart, Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Jo-Jo Ellison

Special Jury Recognition for Immersive Storytelling: (Hi)story of a Painting: The Light in the Shadow
Directors: Quentin Darras, Gaëlle Mourre, Writer: Gaëlle Mourre, Producers: Charlotte Mikkelborg, Gaëlle Mourre

SXSW SPECIAL AWARDS

Fandor New Voices Award
Winner: What We Leave Behind
Director: Iliana Sosa, Producers: Emma D. Miller, Iliana Sosa, Isidore Bethel (co-producer)

Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award
Winner: Chee$e
Writer/Director: Damian Marcano, Producer: Alexa Marcano

Adobe Editing Award
Winner: Everything Everywhere All At Once
Editor: Paul Rogers

Louis Black “Lone Star” Award
Winner: What We Leave Behind
Director: Iliana Sosa, Producers: Emma D. Miller, Iliana Sosa, Isidore Bethel (co-producer)

Zeiss Cinematography Award
Winner: A Vanishing Fog
Cinematographer: Gio Park

Mailchip Support the Shorts Award
Winner: The Voice Actress
Writer/Director: Anna J. Takayama, Producer: Joe Skinner