The 15th annual Montclair Film Festival closed its ten-day run with a winners list that mixed acclaimed international directors with first-time feature filmmakers. Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love won the festival’s top juried fiction feature prize, while Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine earned the audience award for fiction feature. The festival ran from October 16 to 25, 2026 in Montclair, New Jersey, and announced its competition winners on Monday, October 26.
Possible Love Wins the Fiction Feature Prize
Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love took the festival’s main fiction feature award, decided by a jury rather than audience vote. The film follows two married couples whose lives become entangled through a documentary shoot, and it stars Sul Kyung-gu, Jeon Do-yeon, Cho Yeo-jeong, and Zo In-sung. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2026, where it won the Grand Jury Prize. The film opened in select theaters in South Korea on September 23, 2026, and will be available on Netflix starting November 6, 2026. It also screened at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2026, with a UK cinema release on October 23.
Wild Horse Nine Takes the Audience Award
Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine opened the festival on October 16 at the Wellmont Theater and went on to win the audience award for fiction feature. The film stars John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, and Parker Posey, and it follows a CIA operation that goes off course in a remote landscape. Wild Horse Nine is scheduled for release in U.S. theaters on November 6, 2026, through Searchlight Pictures. A UK release is also set for November 6, 2026. The film received an almost 15-minute ovation after its Venice debut in September 2026.
Documentary Feature and Special Jury Prize Winners
Pegah Ahangarani’s Rehearsals for a Revolution won the Bruce Sinofsky Award in the documentary feature competition. Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes’ One in a Million received the special jury prize in the same category. The audience award for documentary feature went to Juliane Dressner and Miriam Shor’s My NDA. These three films represent different approaches to nonfiction storytelling, from political observation to personal advocacy.
Future/Now Competition and the Mark Urman Award
The Future/Now competition, which honors early-career filmmakers, ended in a tie. Stephanie Ahn’s Bedford Park and William D. Caballero’s TheyDream were named co-winners and shared the $5,000 Mark Urman award for filmmaking. The shared prize means both films received equal recognition from the jury, and the cash award was split between the two projects.
Short Film Competition Winners
Three short films took top honors in the festival’s short competitions:
- I See You in the Flood, directed by K. Xian Ming Yu, won the fiction short film competition.
- Buckskin, directed by Mars Verrone, won the documentary short film competition.
- Us Being Epic, directed by Jeannette Louie, won the New Jersey shorts competition.
The audience award for best short film went to Steven Leckart’s An Unknown Substance.
Junior Jury and Cinematography Honors
A Junior Jury made up of 15 high school students from 14 area schools awarded its top prize to Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson’s Mouse. The jury also gave a special prize for excellence in cinematography to Senzo Ueno for his work on Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Look Back. The junior jury prize is one of the festival’s distinct honors because it places programming decisions in the hands of younger viewers.
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World Cinema and Festival Background
The audience award for best of world cinema went to Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden. The festival’s full program included opening, centerpiece, and closing night films, and the event was presented by Volvo Car USA. The 2026 edition marked the festival’s 15th anniversary.
“Congratulations to our award winners for their outstanding work. We are incredibly grateful to all of the artists who shared their films with our audiences at this year’s festival. The connection these films forged with our festival audiences created an incredible atmosphere of conversation, connection and community.” — Tom Hall, Montclair Film artistic director
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For more festival coverage, film award updates, and release news, keep reading VvipTimes.
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