Sedona International Film Festival, 32cd Edition (February 2026)

The last week of February is always earmarked on our calendar for the annual Sedona International Film Festival (SIFF).  We’ve been attending for 15 years and began reviewing narrative features for the festival 4 years ago.  When we started attending the festival, being a reviewer was limited to local residents, as it required picking up DVDs at the office. In the streaming era, it became possible for us to contribute.  This year’s lead-up to the festival found us in Paris.  Selecting our films with a stable Internet connection in a major city certainly was easier than in some prior years (on a boat in Antarctica, from a dive resort in Raja Ampat, Indonesia, etc). Having our floating two weeks in Paris in February this year, followed by a few jetlag adjustment days in New York, meant we returned to San Diego Wednesday before the Saturday start of the festival. This year’s departure was further complicated by Steve developing a painful, swollen, symptomatic knee in preceeding months, enough to have xrays, MRI and ortho consults in January and to schedule arthroscopic surgery 2 days before the start of the festival!

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Today was a medically intensive day for us. Steve Ubered up to Jefferson for arthroscopic knee surgery, while I saw Dr Joe for an eye exam in Mission Valley.  It was pouring as I drove north on I-5 to pick up Steve. He had general anesthesia but was not intubated for this quick surgical clean-up. We picked up Peruvian take-out from Q’ero on the way home for an early dinner.

Friday, February 20, 2026

I worked at Fenton with Rebecca, while Steve held court at home, meeting with Alicia, our new prospective housekeeper and our contractor, Chad.  Ordinarily we would have been driving to Sedona to make it there in time for the start of the film festival, but not knowing how quickly Steve’s post-operative recovery would proceed, it seemed better not to push our departure.

Saturday, February 21, 2026

We listened to The Doorman by Chris Pavone on the drive to Sedona. Steve was barely limping and had remarkably little pain. He drove the majority of the way. Two films we reviewed and recommended for the festival screened today, 2025’s Frontier (WW II drama on the French-Spanish border) and Once Upon My Mother, a 2025 French film.  Leila Bekhti plays a force of nature mother, who is determined that her son with a clubfoot have a normal life.

Sunday, February 22, 2026

The Join Us in France podcast on Paris fractional apartments I recorded with Annie Sargent last October aired today.

We started our film festival week at 10 am with a disturbing documentary entitled Trade Secret, exposing ongoing polar bear skin trade and the World Wildlife Fund’s support of hunting.

 

At 1 pm, we were transported to Paris by an adorable animated short film Beast of the Seine, set in the City of Light in 1908, in which a scheming dog becomes famous for rescuing children who have fallen into the river. Filmmaker Jon Portman was on hand for an illuminating Q & A session afterwards.

Usually, the shorts which preceed feature films are thematically linked, but in this case, nothing could be further from the truth.  Omaha (2025) proved to be one of the best and saddest films I have ever seen.  It stars John Magaro as a loving father of two adorable children who is forced to make some unbearable choices.  It opens with the family being evicted and embarking on a road trip to Nebraska.

We skipped the 4 pm screening in favor of driving out to Seven Canyons for their shindig. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon for hanging out on their deck.

Gold passholders are no longer invited, so there were no Kroeners to hang out with. We did have engaging conversations with two pairs of filmmakers of shorts, both of whose films had screened earlier in the day in Shorts program 1. We were able to watch one of these films (Undelivered) later that evening, thanks to a QR code provided by writer and producer Erin Keating and director David Lester. The couple live in Toronto and met while writing for The Handmaid’s Tale.  Horrible Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) from that show stars in their film as a shut-in writer who hasn’t produced anything of note since a critically acclaimed book at age 22. Her life is shaken up when she is recognized by the young woman who delivers her groceries (Hilary McCormack).

In the 4 pm slot, one of the more intense films we reviewed and recommended, 2025’s Dreams, screened at SPAC.  It stars Jessica Chastain as a San Francisco philanthropist and socialite, who has a clandestine relationship with a Mexican ballet dancer (Isaac Hernández).

Another film we screened for inclusion showed at SPAC at 7 pm, The Future Awaits. a 2025 French film set during WW II, as a Jewish family is forced into hiding a tiny attic room.

By evening, I had a sore throat and the unmistakable onset of a cold.

Monday, February 23, 2026

We attended two emotionally very intense films today, both in French. Muganga (2025) left us all walloped. Isaach De Bankolé plays Denis Mukwege, a surgeon in the Congo, who treats women who are victims of genital mutilation and rape. He is aided in the effort by a laparoscopic surgeon from Belgium, Guy Cadière.

Back in 2010, we saw Lynn Nottage’s powerful play, Ruined, at La Jolla Playhouse, which made us aware of this horrifying situation. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2009. The Congo has been called the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman, a terrible distinction.

After a lunch break at the VIP lounge, provided by Enchantment (salad, chicken, mashed potatoes and roasted brussels sprouts and carrots), several trips to Ace (Steve decided to tackle the grungy kitchen tile grout) and a quick nap at home, we were back at Harkins for The Most Precious of Cargoes (2024, French title, La Plus Précieuse des Marchandises), an animated film set during WW II.  It is directed by Michel Hazanavicius, who co-wrote the script with Jean-Claude Grumberg, who wrote the 2019 book on which the film is based. The film opens in a Polish forest in a dense snowfall, beautifully rendered by the animation. A poor woodcutter is granted her most fervent wish, to have a child, when she encounters a baby that has been thrown from a passing train into the snow. The circumstances of the child’s eviction from the train become clear later. It is narrated by Jean-Louis Trintignant, his final role.

In the evening, we had a rare chance to attend a meeting of the Sedona Camera Club, at which we’ve been the headline speakers a couple of times.  We were drawn by the presence of night photographer Royce Bair, whose work I’ve admired since we got into night photography.

Tuesday, February 24, 2026

We barely made it to My Dear Theo in time, after stops at Ace and a very quick lunch at VIP lounge.  It is a heartfelt documentary film derived from footage filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko managed to record as messages to her young son Theo, while stationed at the front in the Ukraine war.

We had time for a short walk between films into the neighborhood, before returning to the Alice Gill theater for The Shrowdinger (preceeded by a wonderful, Academy Award nominated animated short Forevergreen).  The misicule,$5 K budget (half for the laptop to edit the film) showed but was overall an amazing accomplishment to make it into the festival.

There was a special event in the evening, a concert with three French musicians called Right in the Eye: Live Movie Concert of George Méliès Films.  George Méliès was a French filmmaker, active very early in the history of cinema, so this was a rare chance to see a collection of his innovative films dating from the silent era. The musicians played an interesting variety of instruments to accompany the films, including a theremin.

Wednesday, February 25, 2026

We took a virtual roadtrip to Iceland’s interior with a quarrelsome pair (Mathilde Warnier and Edward Hayter) in Anorgasmia, a 2025 film co-written (with Karolina Lewicka), directed and produced by Jon Einarsson Gustafsson. The pair find themselves grounded by a volcanic eruption and embark on a quest to be the first to photograph it.

We caught a ride to Big O Tires with Jim and Jeannette, Steve having discovered the persistent low tire signal was for real-there was a nail in the rear driver’s side tire.

SPAC was near full for a screening of 1988’s Crossing Delancey, starring Amy Irving and Peter Riegert. They were to be special guests of the festival, but ultimately, the blizzard in New York prevailed, and their multiply rescheduled flights were repeatedly cancelled. We had enjoyed the film back in the day in St. Louis. They Zoomed in afterwards for a Q & A.  We were surprised to learn their co-star, as Izzy’s interfering but well-meaning grandmother, Reizl Bozyk, was a star of Yiddish theater and that Crossing Delancey was her only film role. Both actors had high praise for Crossing Delancey’s director, Joan Micklin Silver, with whom Riegert had previously worked.

Jim was nice enough to run us back over to Big O to reclaim the car. Back at SPAC, we were transported to repressive post-revolution Iran via 2025’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, based on the 2003 book of the same name by Azar Nafisi.

Thursday, February 26, 2026

We saw only a single film today, The Marching Band (French title, En Fanfare), a film I happened to see on a plane (to France of course!) and loved.  It was rescreened on the festival’s final day as a Director’s Choice for Best International Feature and winner for Audience Choice Best of Fest Narrative.

We went to dinner at Barb and Jeff’s.  Barb’s sister Christy was visiting.  Jeff is quite the cook, serving spinach dumplings, served with a chorizo tomato sauce over pasta, with salad.

Friday, February 27, 2028

We both were blown away by The Fallow Few, an excellent WW I story based on actual events of a soldier (Bradley James) charged with guarding British deserters destined for the firing squad, whose resolve is tested while guarding an officer, Lieutenant Edwin “Eddie” Dyett (Christopher Bonwell).  Director JR Rappaport was present for an engaging Q & A.

Billy Knight, shown at SPAC in the afternoon, elicted controversial reactions from the audience, as we learned from subsequent conversations with multiple people, with some loving it and others hating it.  We were in the camp that had trouble with the premise, with Al Pacino as Billy Knight, a forgotten Hollywood Golden Age star who may or may not be real. He is real enough to a young film student (Charlie Heaton) who pursues Billy’s myth and legacy.

We were back at SPAC in the evening for Jimpa, drawn by the combined star power of Olivia Colman as a filmmaker making a trip to Amsterdam with her nonbinary teenager (Aud Mason-Hyde) to visit her gay father, Jimpa (John LIthgow). Sophie Hyde directed, as well as co-wrote the script (with Matthew Cormack).

Saturday, February 28, 2026

We spent the morning and early afternoon at SPAC for films we saw as screeners and liked enough to sponsor their showings. My pick, The Secret Floor, is the only film I can recall in four years as a screener receiving universal top “5” scores across the board from every single reviewer in every category. Director and co-producer Nobert Lechner traveled from Germany to be present for a Q & A afterwards. He described how co-writer Antonia Rothe-Liermann (with Katrin Milhahn) was so upset by learning in school as an 8-year old about Auschwitz that she couldn’t sleep well for months. It well deserved receiving the Audience Choice award for Best Feature Drama at week’s end.

This was his second time to attend the festival as a director, with his 2019 film The Wall Between Us being featured in the 2020 festival, which concluded just before the global pandemic shut-down.

During the screening season, Steve had really enjoyed a comedy, Zoe, enough that he wanted to sponsor it.  Normally we screen films together, but this was back in October, when we were in Paris.  I started the film with him, enjoyed the first section with a manic, messy Zoe whose life is in a tailspin, but jetlag got the best of me so I had never seen the entire film. Co-producer and co-director Dean Ronalds traveled from Italy to be present for the Q & A which followed.  His Italian wife, Emanuela Gallussi is his collaborator in producing and writing this tale, in which she stars as Zoe, a woman with seemingly everything ( a rich but domineering father, a job in the family business, a boyfriend she thinks is about to propose) whose unhappy life is upended during Carnival. A young wizard grants her three chances to try on alternate lives in Ibiza as a very Sedona-type yoga instructor, in London as the wife of a rock star and in Paris as a successful photographer.

We headed home for the late afternoon.  I hiked up Cibola, circling back home on Jordan, while Steve decided to tackle the kitchen’s dingy-looking slate floor grout.

He was on his hands and knees with this project when I left for the evening’s concert with Ramin Karimloo and the Broadgrass Band (guitarist Sergio Ortega and pianist Alan Markley). Entering SPAC, I ran into Jeff, Barb and Christy. Jeff ended up sitting with me for a performance which was received with wild acclaim.  The band plays a mix of bluegrass compositions of their own, with Broadway standards, many from roles Ramin has played (Edelweiss, The Music of the Night, Bring Him Home from Les Miz).  Hearing Ramin sing The Music of the Night had me booking tickets to Masquerade (the immersive Phantom of the Opera) for NYC in May. The show closed with You’ll be Back (from Hamilton) and a mutual promise from the band and the audience to reunite in the future.

Sunday, March 1, 2026

We started our final film day in Corsica. Of the four 10 am screenings, we had already seen three, or so I thought. Steve leaned over as The Mohican started to roll and whispered that he had seen it as a screener. It is a 2024 French film written and directed by Fréderic Farrucci and stars Alexis Manenti as Joseph, the last goatherder to tend his flock on the coast, on a familial parcel the mafia want to develop. A confrontation turns violent, and Joseph is forced to flee across the rugged island.

There being no lunch at the VIP lounge and having opted to see yet another film over attending the Awards Brunch, we walked over to Pisa Lisa, which was less crowded than I expected for Sunday lunchtime.  We shared a Caesar salad, tomato bisque soup, and a meatball sub, all very satisfying.

The 1 o’clock offerings were Director’s Choices and included a 2025 film from the UK Jim had raved about all week, Mr. Burton.  It depicts Welsh actor Richard Burton’s (Harry Lawtey) origin story, as an unruly student with an alcoholic miner father, whose fortunes are changed by a caring teacher (Toby Jones) who coaches and ultimately effectively adopts him.  Lesley Manville, who we saw weeks before as an unforgettable Jocasta in Oedipus in NYC plays the owner of the boarding house in which the teacher lives.

Our final film was a Best of Fest Audience choice winner in the documentary category.  André is an idiot is a documentary directed by Tony Benna whose subject, André Ricciardi, is diagnosed with advanced colon cancer, with which he deals with humor and irreverence. He was very involved in the filming, from diagnosis to eventual death, after 3+ years of chemotherapy.  It was painful to to watch his disease make him progressively more emaciated but Andre’s spirit is a joy to behold.

Out of 35 possible time slots (4/day X 8 days, + 3 on the final day), we saw 16 narratives new to us, 3 shorts, attended 2 concerts and resaw 2 films we had screened as reviewers, for a total of 21 films.  Including films we saw as reviewers, but didn’t view again during the festival, we saw 27 films.  As always, it was a delightful week, full of stimulating and entertaining cinema with film loving friends, in a sunny and gorgeous setting, an annual event we cherish. Our favorite films from the week are bolded but all are worth seeking out, whether in a theater, on an airplane or streaming at home.

-Marie