The 45th Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival has officially wrapped up. Perhaps the string of nice weather, with no snow in sight, attracted record-breaking crowds that shattered their previous daily attendance record—twice!

I only managed to catch 11 films (two of them online), which is four fewer than I had hoped for. The reason? I came down with a cold 🤧 on Thursday night after seeing John Carney’s latest Power Ballad (which was great, so it was well worth it). The bug I got was a doozy, hence I was absent from blogging for the past couple of days.

I’m really bummed that I missed two films directed by women on Friday, and I had taken a day off to see those, but I ended up pretty much bedridden. One of the films I was supposed to see on Friday was In-I in Motion, a French doc directed by and featuring Juliette Binoche, which tells the story of her 2008 dance-theater project with choreographer Akram Khan. It’s become a tradition for me to watch a Binoche film at MSPIFF almost every year.

In any event, MSPIFF announced its 2026 jury and audience award winners, most of them directed by women. Woot!!! 🎉 ✨ Some of these were the ones I recommended in this post. I sure hope they’ll get distribution soon!

MSPIFF45 Jury Award for Feature Documentary: TO HOLD A MOUNTAIN – Directed by Biljana Tutorov & Petar Glomazic

MSPIFF45 Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker: COTTON QUEEN – Directed by Suzannah Mirghani

Audience Choice Award for Documentary Feature: UNCLE ROY – Directed by Keri Pickett

Audience Choice Award for Fiction Feature: COLORS OF TIME – Directed by Cédric Klapisch

FLIXCHATTER’S TOP 5 FAVES

So out of the 11 films I saw at MSPIFF45, here are my top 5 picks (in alphabetical order):

Broken English* (read my Letterboxd review)
Don’t Call Me Mama*
Honeyjoon*
Primavera (review upcoming)
Power Ballad (review upcoming)

Out of those five, three of them are directorial debuts: Don’t Call Me Mama (Nina Knag), Honeyjoon (Lilian T. Mehrel), and Primavera (Damiano Michieletto). That makes it all the more impressive! That’s what I love about film festivals; it’s the perfect place to discover new voices in cinema.

Stay tuned for more MSPIFF reviews in the coming days and weeks!