Now that it’s wrapped up another skin-crawling year of movies, Overlook Film Festival is revealing the best of the bunch. They’ve just announced the winners of their audience and jury prizes for this year, honoring some of the best in features, short films, and more.
The Audience Award, the top prize of the festival voted on by attendees, was awarded to Curry Barker’s Obsession, which hits theaters next month. The shorts audience award went to Hannah Aline’s Scissors, and an additional audience honor for the festival’s new section, Side Shows, was awarded to Kenji Tanigaki’s upcoming action film The Furious.
“They say ‘be careful what you wish for’, but Obsession winning the Audience Award is beyond anything we could have wished for,” said Barker of his win. “We are truly grateful to everyone at the Overlook Film Festival for embracing our movie and are thrilled that audiences had as much fun watching the film as we had making it.”
Composed of filmmaker Vera Drew, curator and film programmer Jongsuk Thomas Nam, and journalist Jen Yamato, this year’s jury also awarded numerous prizes to other, less high-profile films. Dave Boyle’s Never After Dark won the Grand Jury Prize for features, while Scariest Feature went to the Gothic film Mārama, from Māori director Taratoa Stappard. Also featured was a Special Jury Mention for star Midori Frances’ performance in Saccharine, which goes wide in May.
“Ngā mihi nui,” said Taratoa Stappard. “It’s a massive honour for Mārama to receive the Scariest Feature Film Award. I love this festival’s inclusive vibe! It was my first time in fabulous NOLA and I was able to meet and talk with passionate audience members, filmmakers and critics. I’m already manifesting my return…”
But things didn’t slow down for the shorter side of Overlook. The short film jury, comprised of journalist Sharai Bohannon, film critic Payton McCarty-Simas, and filmmaker Jenn Wexler, awarded their Grand Jury Prize to Lee Lawson’s Man Eating Pussy, while honoring Alex Jacob’s Ghoststory with Scariest Short, and giving Homemade Gatorade the special Doomscroll Award for Most Harrowing Digital Nightmare.
For more information on the full list of 2026 award winners, you can check out Overlook’s website.
