FESTIVAL COMPETITIONS
The San Diego Asian Film Festival is a competitive film festival celebrating achievements in Asian and Asian American cinema. The 2026 SDAFF Award Winners will be announced at this year’s SDAFF Awards.
The 2026 SDAFF Asian American Film Competition
For our Asian American film competition, an independent jury of filmmakers, curators, critics, academics, and other professionals is chosen to view films and select winners in the following categories: narrative feature, documentary feature, narrative short, documentary short, animated short, and experimental short. Additionally, the jury selects a Grand Jury winner and an optional Special Jury mention.
Eric Byler
Eric Byler is the writer/director of Charlotte Sometimes, which was nominated for two Spirit Awards after winning an Audience Award at SXSW and Best Narrative Feature at SDAFF. His film Americanese, which also premiered at SXSW and won two awards there, will soon be re-released as American Knees.
Will Gow
Will Gow is a fan, producer, and scholar of Asian American cinema. He currently co-directs the Sacramento Asian Pacific Film Festival. In 2025, the Western History Association awarded his book Performing Chinatown: Hollywood, Tourism, and the Making of Chinese American Community its award for best book on the Pacific West.
Elissa Suh
Elissa Suh is a writer and critic from New York whose work has been published in MUBI, Vogue, Bomb Magazine, Filmmaker Magazine, and more. She also publishes the food-and-film newsletter Moviepudding and recently co-authored In the Mood? for A24 Books.
The 2026 SDAFF International Short Film Competition
For the tenth year, SDAFF hosts a competition for Best International Short. This competition highlights some of the most innovative work produced in Asia and encompasses narrative, experimental, and documentary forms.
George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker Award
Each year since his passing, Pacific Arts Movement has proudly presented an Emerging Filmmaker Award in honor of late Programming Director George C. Lin. Selected by the SDAFF programming team, winners are presented to first-time feature filmmakers and other promising new voices.
Click here for a list of past George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker Award winners.
Audience Award
Every new feature film at SDAFF is eligible for the Audience Award, voted on by attendees immediately after the screening. The winner is announced at the conclusion of the festival.
