The Santa Fe International Film Festival is marking its 16th year with one of the biggest achievements for any film festival: It is now recognized by the Academy of the Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences as Oscar- qualifying.

The designation means winners of the Best Animated Short, Best Narrative Short, and Best Documentary Short categories at this year’s festival are now eligible to submit to the Oscars. The change this year came after the Academy has re-evaluated which festivals will be Oscar-qualifying — and chose Santa Fe as one of the prestigious few.

“It’s really wonderful, and it really helps us shine a light on these short filmmakers that work so hard to create their films,” says Liesette Bailey, executive director of the Santa Fe International Film Festival. “We’ve always tried to find these undiscovered gems.”

She added: “And definitely with our outreach to New Mexico filmmakers, to Indigenous filmmakers, to get to shine a light on them is really exciting. We really take the submission process seriously and try to do our best to make the festival as filmmaker-friendly as possible to help these filmmakers be recognized.”

She noted that Santa Fe has one of the highest per-capita rates of Oscar voters outside of Los Angeles and New York. Those who live there full- or part-time include Robert Redford and Shirley MacLaine, who have both attended SFIFF, as well as Academy Award honoree Wes Studi, who serves on the festival’s advisory board.

The festival is very much a family operation: Bailey’s brother, festival artistic director Jacques Paisner, started it with actor Gary Farmer, and Bailey contributed greatly to getting it to the summit it’s reached today.

About the Santa Fe International Film Festival

Before they ran a festival, Bailey and Paisner were Santa Fe kids who loved watching movies more than anything.

“I was born and raised in Santa Fe, so the festival is our way of showing people how wonderful Santa Fe. It’s our love letter to Santa Fe, because we love it and we want other people to see it through our eyes,” she said. “We have a world-class opera, we have a world-class folk art market. Bringing the film festival to the next level in Santa Fe is really exciting, and I think that Academy qualification really just kind of cements that.”

Added Derek Horne, director of Shorts Programming: “It has been a privilege curating the Shorts for the festival over the past 12 years, and this recognition by the Academy is quite validating for both our programming and our filmmakers.” 

The festival — one of MovieMaker‘s 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, even before its Oscar qualification — will be held this year from Wednesday, October 16 through Sunday, October 20. It will open with Malcolm Washington’s The Piano Lesson and close with Amber Sealey’s Out of My Mind, and highlights include Award-winning actor Bryan Cranston being honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award. 

The achievement is another accolade for Santa Fe, which is also the No. 1 Smaller City on MovieMaker’s latest list of the Best Places to Live and Work as a Moviemaker.

This year’s festival films include a slew of Oscar winners and nominees.

Throughout the five days, the festival will screen 184 films including 42 narrative features, 24 documentaries, and 118 short films. Titles include Michael Gracey’s Better Man, a documentary about pop icon Robbie Williams;  Academy Award winner’s Andrea Arnold’s Bird, starring Academy Award nominee Barry Keoghan; and Phil Blattenberger’s Laws of Man, featuring Academy Award winner Keith Carradine and Academy Award nominees Harvey Keitel and Graham Greene.

Other films include Academy Award nominee RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys, adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel; Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch, starring six-time Academy Award nominee Amy Adams; Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, featuring Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin; Academy Award winner Pedro Almodóvar’s The Next Room, with Academy Award winners Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton; Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5, starring John Magaro and Peter Sarsgaard; and Academy Award nominee William Goldenberg’s Unstoppable, with Jennifer Lopez,  Academy Award nominee Don Cheadle, and Michael Peña.

The full lineup is here. Tickets for SFIFF can be purchased by santafe.film, and events will take place at venues across Santa Fe.