The Sundance Institute has announced the short film winners for the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at the Short Film Awards Ceremony & Party Presented by Ketel One Vodka.
Filmmakers representing the 54 shorts selected for the 2026 festival gathered at The Park in Park City, Utah, for an event celebrating short-form storytelling.
The majority of the award-winning shorts can be viewed online in the US from 29 January to 1 February for audiences to experience from home.
The 2026 festival kicked off on 22 January and continues until 1 February, inviting audiences to enjoy world premieres, screenings, talks, events, and more in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah.
The Grand Jury Prize was awarded to The Baddest Speechwriter of All (Nonfiction).
Short Film Jury Awards went to Crisis Actor (US Fiction), Jazz Infernal (International Fiction), The Boys and the Bees (Nonfiction), and Living with a Visionary (Animation).
Two Special Jury Awards were also presented: Short Film Special Jury Award for Creative Vision to Don Hertzfeldt for Paper Trail (Animation) and Short Film Special Jury Award for Acting to Noah Roja and Filippo Carrozza for The Liars (Argentina).
This year the festival’s short film jury members were: A.V. Rockwell, Liv Constable-Maxwell, and Martin Starr.
“We are proud to celebrate the art of short filmmaking, our award winners, and every team that shared their work with us in the Short Film Program this festival,” said Heidi Zwicker, Sundance Film Festival senior programmer, feature films and short films.
“We are continually inspired by the incredible range of storytelling and style we encounter in the shorts that form our lineup every year — we congratulate these artists and thank them for sharing their distinct visions with us and with our audiences.”
The Short Film Program awards announced the winning projects at the midpoint of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where 97 feature-length and episodic works and 54 short films — curated from 11,480 short film submissions — have screened to audiences in Park City, Salt Lake City, and online.
Short film award winners in previous years include The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing by Theo Panagopoulos, The Masterpiece by Alex Lora Cercos, When You Left Me on That Boulevard by Kayla Abuda Galang, The Headhunter’s Daughter by Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan, Lizard by Akinola Davies Jr., So What If the Goats Die by Sofia Alaoui, Aziza by Soudade Kaadan, Matria by Álvaro Gago, And so we put goldfish in the pool. by Makoto Nagahisa, Lucia, Before and After by Anu Valia, Gregory Go Boom by Janicza Bravo, Thunder Road by Jim Cummings, and World of Tomorrow by Don Hertzfeldt.
More information is available on the Sundance website.
