The El Dorado Film Festival recognized the twisty mockumentary American Comic, the mother-daughter comedy-drama Honeyjoon and a collection of ambitious shorts including “JJ,” “Endzgiving,” “The Music Store” and “The Oldest” as it handed out its awards Sunday night.
The event at the South Arkansas Arts Center capped five days of stellar films at the festival, which highlights work from around the world but provides an especially welcome showcase for films made in Arkansas and the South. Many of the entries are born of the thriving local film scene that includes both southern Arkansas and nearby Shreveport, Louisiana. El Dorado, an oil boom town 100 years ago, now has about 20,000 residents and a film festival that outshines many in towns 10 times its size.
The festival doesn’t just screen films — it gets them made. Festival executive director Alexander Jeffery and board president Tamra Corley Davis are both filmmakers themselves, and passionate boosters of fellow local filmmakers: Both frequently turn up in the credits as producers of films in the festival. And filmmakers who attend the festival one year often get inspiration or form partnerships that lead them to make new films that screen at El Dorado a year later.
The festival also has a close relationship with Shreveport’s Louisiana Film Prize, and both the El Dorado Film Festival and Louisiana Film Prize are on our list of 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee.
Winners at the 2026 El Dorado Film Festival
The award for Best Cinematography, presented by Video Village’s Filmbox, went to Diego Guijarro for the short “We Were.” The film, directed by Jonah Haber, follows a character named David from childhood to adulthood, tracing relationships and moments across three stages of his life. The award included a license for Filmbox Pro, which normally costs $999. Other awards included a $500 cash prize.
The award for Best Arkansas Made Short went to Mark Thiedeman, whose short film “JJ” follows two young men who are forced to question their complicated relationship and feelings for each other after they appear together in an amateur video.
“It’s not lost on me that I make movies that are not for everyone,” Thiedeman said in his acceptance speech. “When I was in high school, I would never have imagined that I would be making sad, gay, grimy movies in Arkansas and that there would be a place here to show them.”
In the Best Southern Made Film category, “The Oldest” won, and “Strand” received an Honorable Mention. “The Oldest,” by Texas filmmaker Cathlin McCullough, follows a young girl who cares for both her many siblings and unpredictable father. “Strand,” directed by Austin Gorski and written by and starring Gabriel Rosales, is about a man with a strange curse who draws the attention of an eerily familiar woman.
In the Best Drama Short category, “The Music Store” won and “Heavy Is the Head” received an Honorable Mention. “The Music Store” is a patient, unexpectedly funny slice-of-life short that will ring true to anyone who has run a small family business. Written and directed by Joe Gillette, who also stars, it’s about two brothers who inherit a struggling music store from their father.
“Heavy Is the Head,” meanwhile, is an experimental film by Chap Edmonson that follows a young Black boy coming of age in America.
The winner of the Best Comedy Short was “Endzgiving,” a gleefully macabre horror comedy about a Friendsgiving unfolding during a zombie apocalypse. It’s from the very prolific Tina Carbone, who used her awards speech to praise the festival.
After many presenters grumbled that they hated award shows, because it’s so hard to judge art, she quipped, “I love award shows!”
“I love this festival,” she added. “This is my first time submitting, my first time coming… and I had so much fun, and I’ve loved every single film here. You guys are all amazing, and the films have been incredible. So nice curation, and well done, everybody. This is for all of us.”
The Best Documentary winner was The Big Picture, Arthur Cauty’s portrait of a state-of-the-art, but quietly forgotte, cinema in British city of Bristol.
The winner for Best Narrative Feature was Honeyjoon, Lilian T. Mehrel’s story of a mother and daughter who travel to the Azores islands for a grief anniversary, and find that they have different approaches to grief.
The Best of Fest winner was American Comic, a very funny mockumentary about the state of stand up comedy in which star and co-writer Joe Kwaczala plays two comedians who are comically abrasive, in very different ways. He attended the festival to detail the remarkable process of playing both characters in front of real comedy audiences.
The Pam Callaway Spirit of the Festival Award went to Cherie Bright, one of many volunteers who make the festival one of the most hospitable you’ll find anywhere.
The award was presented by John Lowery, assistant executive director of the South Arkansas Art Center, the stellar gallery and performance space that hosts the El Dorado Film Festival. He noted that Callaway, who died in 2018, was a boundless supporter of the festival who “always went above and beyond in making our festival special and making our out of town guests feel welcome. … You know, El Dorado is a small town, but we don’t think we’re small. We think we’re big, and we do everything big.”
He futher said of Callaway: “She was small, but she was vibrant. Everything that she did, she did it big …. she had a spirit to her that was just full of color.”
Bright is such a festival supporter that she was recording the ceremony on her phone, for a friend, when she was surprised to be named the winner of the Spirit of the Festival Award.
Main image: Honeyjoon, which won Best Narrative Feature at the El Dorado Film Festival.