The 2025 Sarasota Film Festival has announced its winners, and one film in particular will draw attention for having screened to much acclaim in this bright red county, ultimately winning the top documentary prize: Kim A. Snyder’s “The Librarians,” a film that’s sounding the alarm strongly about right-wing attacks on free speech, won Best Documentary Feature, after screening at New College, a university itself subjected to a right-wing takeover and attacks on free speech.
The win for “The Librarians” caps another edition of the festival known for its strong curation (largely due to senior programmer Brian Gordon), that brings to Florida’s Gulf Coast titles from Sundance, Cannes, Palm Springs, Mill Valley, and more.
The documentary jury, comprised of freelance journalist Addie Morfoot, Impact Partners co-founder Geralyn Dreyfous, and “Lovers” director Taylor McFadden also awarded a Special Jury Mention to Sasha Wortzel’s “River of Grass,” an environmentally-focused documentary about the Everglades.
The narrative jury, of which this writer was a part, alongside Submarine founder Josh Braun, documentarian Jill Campbell, and “Godfather of Harlem” writer Michael Panes, gave the Best Narrative Feature prize to Ricardo de Montreuil’s Peruvian food-porn triumph “Mistura.” We also awarded a Special Jury Mention to David Fortune’s Atlanta-set “Color Book,” about a Black father dealing with the grief over the passing of his wife and trying to be the best dad he can to his son with Down Syndrome.
Attendees of the festival are still thinking the most about an extraordinary performance Denver-based musician Nathaniel Rateliff gave following a screening of his partner Taylor McFadden’s film “Lovers” as the closing night selection (this writer moderated the post-screening Q&A). It’s a tribute to how music can help power and sustain a community, one which comes together following the death of one of their own, who took his own life.
The day before that extraordinary final screening and performance, awards were handed out in-person to Harmony Korine, who won the Trailblazer Award; Chris Brancato (“Narcos,” “Godfather of Harlem”) who won the Innovation in Television Award; Rome Flynn, who stars in “Godfather of Harlem” Season 4, as Frank Lucas (memorably played by Denzel Washington in “American Gangster”), received the Rising Star Award.
Kayci Lacob’s “Book of Jobs” won the Independent Visions competition. Ian Edward Meir’s “Tigers of the Sky” was the Documentary Short Competition winner, and Nya Chambless won the Narrative Short Competition for her “My Guardian Angel.” Chambless, a freshman in high school, won everyone’s hearts with her accomplished filmmaking about the death of her best friend from cancer. Her father, Jerry Chambless, the owner of Sarasota-based Illum Productions, appeared on my “Filming in Florida” panel over the weekend.
The Narrative Audience Award went to Jessica Palud’s Maria Schneider biopic “Being Maria,” starring “Mickey 17” breakout Anamaria Vartolomei. And the Documentary Audience Award went to Miles Larsen’s “The Light They Cast” about eight incarcerated Sarasota men readjusting to life after prison.
The 10-day festival was lively from start to finish, with a hoard of teenage boys swarming Korine for his autograph — one fan was dressed like Matthew McConaughey in “The Beach Bum,” another presented him with a skeletal effigy that he hopes Korine will place in one of his films, while another said “I don’t usually fuck with film, but you’re my fucking hero” — Submarine founder Josh Braun playing the bongos at the ever-wild President’s Dinner hosted by festival overlord Mark Famiglio, an appearance from trailblazing model Rishumba Williams, and finally Rateliff’s performance of a song he wrote for “Lovers” to end the fest.
“The Librarians” winning the Best Documentary Feature prize and being greeted with a warm reception at New College is maybe the biggest newsmaking event of the fest, however. New College, long a liberal bastion and one of the most LGBTQ-friendly universities in Florida, was subjected to a right-wing takeover spearheaded by Governor Ron DeSantis in 2023.
Snyder’s film “The Librarians” is about pushing back on book bannings and other right-wing moves to curtail free speech, including the firing, two years ago, of a librarian who worked at New College. Its Sarasota premiere at New College is an important moment of pushing back on that government overreach and suggests that actual free speech might be possible at New College in the not-distant future, not just a certain type of government-sanctioned speech.
“The Librarians” director Snyder told IndieWire at the festival that being able to screen her film at a college where such a battle had taken place — in Sarasota, which is closely linked to the Moms for Liberty group shown in the film — was critically important.
“It’s honestly one of the main things that compelled me to come to Sarasota,” Snyder said. “This is a place that has a lot of diversity in the sense of a lot of different viewpoints. I think sometimes it gets a bad rap in certain ways. I have a college roommate who lives here, and I did follow the New College story very, very closely and feel that this film is all about trying to help restore a space of civic dialogue. So to have our screening happen on the campus where hundreds of LGBTQ books were taken and thrown into dumpsters, and be able to push back against that, is extraordinary. This is one of the civic rights fights of our time.”
The full list of 2025 Sarasota Film Festival winners is below.
Jury Awards
Narrative Feature Competition Winner
“Mistura”
Director: Ricardo de Montreuil
Documentary Feature Competition Winner
“The Librarians”
Directors: Kim A. Snyder
Narrative Feature Jury Special Mention
“Color Book”
Director: David Fortune
Documentary Feature Jury Special Mention
“River of Grass”
Director: Sasha Wortzel
Independent Visions Competition Winner
“Book of Jobs”
Director: Kayci Lacob
US Narrative Short Competition Winner
“My Guardian Angel”
Director: Nya Chambless
Documentary Short Competition Winner
“Tigers of the Sky”
Director: Ian Edward Meir
Audience Awards
Narrative Audience Award Winner
“Being Maria”
Director: Jessica Palud
Documentary Audience Award Winner
“The Light They Cast”
Director: Miles Larsen
2025 Sarasota Film Festival Jury
Narrative Feature Jury
Christian Blauvelt, Digital Director, IndieWire
Jill Campbell, Director (“Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue”)
Josh Braun, Co-Founder, Submarine
Michael Panes, Writer (“Godfather of Harlem”)
Documentary Feature Jury
Addie Morfoot, Variety and New York Times Contributor
Geralyn Dreyfous, Academy Award winning producer & Co-Founder, Impact Partners
Taylor McFadden, Director (“Lovers”)
