Above image: Still, Shithouse (2020) dir Cooper Raif 

As one of the first major international film festivals to announce their closure, SXSW kept their competition intact by announcing at the beginning of this month that they would still be handing out awards despite the event’s cancellation.

Director of Film Janet Pierson and her team made the decision to, “Continue and expand to all the juried competitions, if the majority of the filmmakers opted in and juries were available.”

This year’s cancelled program would have hosted 135 feature films, including 99 world premieres, nine North American premieres, five US premieres, and 75 films from first-time filmmakers. The rest of the program would have included 119 short films, including music videos, twelve episodic premieres, seven Special Events, fourteen episodic pilots in two curated programs, 30 title design entries, and 27 virtual cinema projects.

Among the winners were a number of films that had generated discussion before the festival, including Shithouse (Winner, Narrative Feature Competition) directed by Cooper Raif  and Katrine Philp’s The Elephant in the Room, which won best documentary prize. A full list of winners can be found below:

Narrative Feature Competition
Winner: Shithouse, dir. Cooper Raiff
Special Jury Recognition for Directing: Topside, dir. Celine Held, Logan George
Special Jury Recognition for Acting: Really Love (Kofi Siriboe, Yootha Wong-Loi-Sing), dir. Angel Kristi Williams

Documentary Feature Competition
Winner: An Elephant in the Room, dir. Katrine Philp
Special Jury Recognition for Achievement in Documentary Storytelling: The Donut King, dir. by Alice Gu
Special Jury Recognition for Breakthrough Voice: Finding Yingying, dir. Jiayan “Jenny” Shi

Narrative Shorts
Winner: White Eye, dir. Tomer Shushan
Special Jury Recognition for Acting: Dirty (Morgan Sullivan, Manny Dunn), dir. Matthew Puccini
Special Jury Recognition: Darling, dir. Saim Sadiq
Special Jury Recognition: Single, dir. Ashley Eakin

Documentary Shorts
Winner: No Crying at the Dinner Table, dir. Carol Nguyen
Special Jury Recognition: Mizuko, dir. Katelyn Rebelo, Kira Dane
Special Jury Recognition: Día de la Madre, dir. Ashley Brandon, Dennis Höhne

Midnight Shorts
Winner: Regret, dir. Santiago Menghini
Special Jury Recognition: Laura Hasn’t Slept, dir. Parker Finn
Special Jury Recognition for Creature Design: Stucco, dir. Janina Gavankar, Russo Schelling

Animated Shorts
Winner: Symbiosis, dir. Nadja Andrasev
Special Jury Recognition: No, I Don’t Want to Dance!, dir. Andrea Vinciguerra
Special Jury Recognition: The Shawl, dir. Sara Kiener

Music Videos
Winner: 070 Shake – Nice to Have, dir. Noah Lee
Special Jury Recognition for Animation: Mitski – A Pearl, dir. Saad Moosajee, Art Camp
Special Jury Recognition for Direction: The Lumineers – Gloria, dir. Kevin Phillips