Audience Award, Documentary: Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie
Audience Award, Narrative: The Wedding Entertainer (or the Tale of Moishe Badhan)
Inaugurated at the 37th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (2017), the SFJFF audience award is chosen by ballot from all participating San Francisco Jewish Film Festival attendees. All new-release feature films are eligible for consideration. Audience Award categories include Best Narrative Feature and Best Documentary Feature.
Best First Feature Award: The Darkest Light
New for 2026, the Best First Feature Award recognizes achievements from emerging filmmakers.
2026 Jury: Micah Gottlieb, Zackary Drucker
Jury Statement: "We were extraordinarily moved and transformed by this documentary, which asks meaningful questions about the legacy of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and provides riveting, complex answers. Its judicious and eye-opening use of archival footage captures a significant strain of late-20th-century American Jewish life, while the wide range of interviews – with Carlebach’s family, acolytes, and victims – provides a complex reckoning with his legacy of sexual exploitation. How do we respond when our heroes fail us, and how do we move forward? The film is an encapsulation of the sacred Jewish value: “Ometz Lev” COURAGE, that will no doubt spark vital conversations across our communities and beyond. Mazel tov! The jury awarded the inaugural Best First Feature award to The Darkest Light."
SFBAFCC Award Winner: Oxygen
The San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle Award, is awarded annually since 2017 to the best feature film as chosen by the influential community of Bay Area film critics.
Jury Statement: What is ultimately stronger: a mother’s love or the deeply ingrained belief that some principles are worth any sacrifice? That profound moral conflict lies at the heart of Natalie Braun’s remarkable Oxygen. Through Dana Ivgy’s extraordinary performance as Anat—a teacher and lapsed poet forced to confront an impossible choice—the film refuses easy answers or sentimental resolutions. Instead, it embodies the very best of cinema: challenging audiences to wrestle with questions of duty, love, conviction, and the devastating cost of the choices we make. For its emotional intelligence, moral complexity, and unwavering artistic integrity, the SFBAFCC are proud to recognize Oxygen.
Best Documentary Short: Scenes from the Divide
This juried award honors achievements in short documentary filmmaking since 2017. All short documentaries in the Festival are eligible. The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is an Academy Award® qualifying festival in the Documentary Short Subject category. Recipients of SFJFF's Best Short Documentary Award will be eligible for consideration in the Documentary Short Subject category of the Academy Awards®, without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules.
2026 Jury: Sandi DuBowski, Marval Rex, Jamison Rockmore
Jury Statement: "This film is surprising, critical, illuminating, intimate, and nuanced. Featuring a beautifully-cast intergenerational chorus of voices, it traverses a minefield of hot-button issues of anti-Semitism and safety, Israel/Palestine/diaspora, post-Soviet Jewish identity, socialism, Gen Z and Millennial, but does it in such a tender and thoughtful and trusted way. It is an untold story that deserves to be seen urgently in the US, Israel/Palestine, and around the world. The jury is proud to present the Best Short Documentary Award to Scenes from the Divide by Alison Klayman."
Best Documentary Short: Elijah
Introduced at the 2024 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, this juried award honors achievements in short narrative filmmaking. All selected narrative shorts in the Festival are eligible.
2026 Jury: Bec Pecaut, Jim LeBrecht, Josh Fu
Jury Statement: "This clever comedy honors one of Judaism’s most hallowed traditions: arguing at the dinner table. The film pulls no punches while grappling with many of the hot-button political and ideological issues that liberal Jews face today. Elijah’s unexpected arrival elevates the story to a whole new level and allows the dinner guests to show their true colors. As the film draws to a close, it dares to end on an uncertain, downbeat note — an apt one, given the crossroads that many young Jews feel they’ve arrived at in terms of squaring their faith and values with those of their peers, families, and the broader world. The jury is proud to award the Best Short Narrative Award to Elijah, directed by Sam Roebling.
The jury would also like to bestow a special mention to Photos of Her by Bar Cohen, a sensitive and emotionally-authentic snapshot of two seemingly different Israeli women finding common ground as they explore their femininity and changing bodies."
The 2026 Freedom of Expression Award recipient is Rachel Bloom
Since 2005, the Jewish Film Institute and San Francisco Jewish Film Festival have presented an artist with the Freedom of Expression Award to honor the unfettered imagination, which is a cornerstone of a free, just and open society.
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