A Mother's Dance, a Teddy Bear on Trial: The 2026 MOMO Short Film Awards
Updated: 21 minutes ago
MOMO INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL · 4TH EDITION SHORT FILM AWARDS 2026 Selected by the Jury · South Lyon Theater, Michigan · October 9–11 |
A Swiss documentary about a mother's body and memory takes Best Short Film and Best Director, as our jury honors five short films from Switzerland, Spain, France and the United States, and one screenplay.
SOUTH LYON, Mich. — A mother who still dances. A teddy bear at the center of a police case. A screenwriter who cannot finish his script. A young painter in search of a muse, and two women singing Puccini on the street. At the fourth edition of MOMO Independent Film Festival, held October 9–11 at South Lyon Theater, our jury chose the winners of the 2026 Short Film Awards, presented on stage at Closing Night on Sunday, October 11.
Independent cinema exists because filmmakers keep making the work they believe in. MOMO exists to give that work a room, an audience, and a moment of attention. To every filmmaker who entrusted us with a film: thank you.
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The Winners
BEST SHORT FILM | Mom Dances Directed by Mégane Brügger |
BEST DIRECTOR | Mégane Brügger Mom Dances |
BEST ACTRESS | Magdalena Broto Teodoro |
BEST ACTOR | Sébastien Novac End (It) |
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY | Movement, Light, and Life Directed by Winston Stemler |
BEST SCREENPLAY | Master By Antonio Foli |
SPECIAL MENTION | Street Muse Directed by Beth Cloutier |
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BEST SHORT FILM · BEST DIRECTOR Mom DancesWhat Remains |
Mom Dances is a quiet, intimate documentary about a mother, her body and her memory, built from words, archive footage and a few dance steps that can still be passed down.
Swiss filmmaker Mégane Brügger made this 23-minute documentary as her graduation film at ECAL, the École cantonale d'art de Lausanne. She wrote and directed it, and appears in it alongside Françoise Brügger. The film opened our festival on Friday night, and on Sunday the jury gave it both Best Short Film and Best Director.
Brügger was born in Switzerland in 1999 and earned her Bachelor's degree in Film from ECAL in 2024, the year she completed Mom Dances. Her work moves between documentary and fiction, and explores the many ways people create bonds and build a family.
FROM THE JURY “An incredibly accomplished and well-constructed short. It uses the short form itself to tell its story… a mastery over form.” “…a careful and understated touch that is deeply affecting.” — MOMO 2026 Jury |
FILM CREDITS | Mom Dances |
ORIGINAL TITLE | Maman danse |
COUNTRY · RUNTIME | Switzerland · 23 min · Documentary |
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY | Mégane Brügger |
WITH | Françoise Brügger, Mégane Brügger |
CINEMATOGRAPHY | Nina Refondini |
EDITING | Margot Sylvestre |
PRODUCTION | ECAL / École cantonale d'art de Lausanne |
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BEST ACTRESS TeodoroA Valentine's Day Mystery |
It is the morning after Valentine's Day, and Sole stands accused of the alleged abuse of Teodoro, her teddy bear. The person who reported her is Graciela, her maid and friend, who soon becomes a suspect herself. Two detectives, Justi and Roque, have to find out what really happened in Sole's house the night before.
As Sole, Spanish actress Magdalena Broto, also seen in Pedro Almodóvar's Volver, takes Best Actress. The film is directed by Esteban Roel and written by María Magdalena Cotun.
Roel trained between Mexico, Spain and Italy. Together with Juanfer Andrés he co-directed the short films 036 and Es un buen chaval, and the feature Musarañas (Shrew's Nest), produced by Álex de la Iglesia, in which Magdalena Broto also appears. Their new feature, Tábula rasa, is in post-production. Roel also directs and produces for the stage through LaMandanga, the production company he founded with Jon Plazaola.
FROM THE JURY “It looks great and is tightly constructed.” “The premise is not something that would have worked without the right performers, but the casting and direction of actors is spot on.” “The pacing, comic timing, performances, editing, camera, and just about everything are terrific.” “This film has its own particular style and sticks to it, start to finish. The director had complete control of the project, which gives it a perspective and a consistent sensibility.” — MOMO 2026 Jury |
FILM CREDITS | Teodoro |
COUNTRY · RUNTIME | Spain · 21 min |
DIRECTED BY | Esteban Roel |
WRITTEN BY | María Magdalena Cotun |
CAST | Magdalena Broto, Luis Cao |
CINEMATOGRAPHY | Iván Pinilla |
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BEST ACTOR End (It)Leaving Paris to Finish a Script |
Novac is 40 and stuck in the middle of a screenplay. A noisy neighbor, a cramped apartment and an overstressed Paris stand between him and the last page. He has only one wish: to finish it, so he can finally go out and simply live. When his producer rents him a large house in the countryside, hope returns.
Written and directed by Jean-Marie Villeneuve, End (It) is a comedy about the strange psychology of writing. Sébastien Novac, who carries the film as Novac, takes Best Actor. The film screened on Closing Night, just before the awards.
Villeneuve directed the feature film Tout est faux, released in French theaters in 2014, and has been making short films since the early 2010s, among them The Cream, AXN, Autumn, Where's Wally? and La Reproduction. His work also includes a 2009 music video for the French singer Dominique A. Alongside his filmmaking, he teaches cinema near Paris.
FROM THE JURY “Lightly surrealist… Careful cinematography and elegant editing, neither of which is flashy nor calls attention to itself.” “The lead actor runs through a range of material. The movie wouldn't have worked with a lesser performance.” “The production value, including production design and sound design, is very well done… the direction and editing are crisp.” — MOMO 2026 Jury |
FILM CREDITS | End (It) |
ORIGINAL TITLE | En finir |
COUNTRY · RUNTIME | France · 28 min · Comedy |
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY | Jean-Marie Villeneuve |
CAST | Sébastien Novac, Philippe Frécon, Franc Bruneau, Clémence Josseau |
CINEMATOGRAPHY | Elvis Gygi |
EDITING | Vincent Schmitt |
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BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Movement, Light, and LifeFrance, 1889 |
The year is 1889. In the French countryside, a young Impressionist painter receives his first commission from the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Searching for a muse to inspire his greatest painting, he finds a story of love, passion and inspiration.
Writer-director Winston Stemler found the idea at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles in March 2023, standing in front of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's La Promenade. He wanted a film with the same qualities as the painting: the intimacy of its two figures, its setting, its lush greenery. Drawing on the lives of painters such as Renoir, Pissarro and Monet, and on romance novels like Pride and Prejudice, he built the story of Paul, a young painter, and Annabelle, as much his mentor as his companion.
In a twist on history, it is Annabelle who is the more talented artist. The paintings seen in the film were created by six fine artists from the Los Angeles area, and the film was made with recent MFA graduates of the American Film Institute. For a film about light and painting, the jury chose to honor its images. Stemler is now developing his first feature, The Good King, to be shot in spring 2027.
“I think even the most fleeting of moments can be timeless.” — A line from Movement, Light, and Life |
FROM THE JURY “Beautifully shot and sensitive… how beautifully balanced the exterior and interior scenes were, the pure sunlight and the warm firelight… very dexterously handled and rich.” “…the extensive attention to period production within the constraint of the short narrative film.” “The film was made with talent, confidence, care and grace.” — MOMO 2026 Jury |
FILM CREDITS | Movement, Light, and Life |
COUNTRY · RUNTIME | United States · 15 min · Period romance |
WRITTEN, DIRECTED & PRODUCED BY | Winston Stemler |
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BEST SCREENPLAY MasterBy Antonio Foli |
2026 was the first year MOMO opened its Official Selection to screenwriting. From the scripts in our Screenplay Competition, the jury chose Master, by Antonio Foli, for Best Screenplay.
Master Julius Griffin is a formidable martial artist who rarely loses and never doubts himself. At his South Side dojo, students endure punishing training, and to the vulnerable drawn into his orbit he offers something tangible: the ability to fight back against a world that hurts them.
But beneath his commanding presence lies a disturbing appetite for violence. He hears voices and sees horrific visions. As his past intrudes on the present, his movements turn animalistic and his body begins to take on the shape of a predator. On the road to a confrontation with Master Flow, a respected fighter whose philosophy stands against his own, the line between martial arts technique, psychological disturbance and physical transformation disappears.
Antonio Foli is a writer, filmmaker, poet and scholar, born in Belgium and raised on the South Side of Chicago, and a martial artist for more than twenty years. A Chicago Poetry Slam Champion, he is the author of three poetry collections, including learning rhythm and ON GOD. Set in the brutal “Blood and Guts” era of American karate, Master also looks back at a forgotten chapter of history: Black servicemen who learned martial arts overseas and brought them home, long before Bruce Lee and the kung-fu boom. It is, in Foli's words, a film about discovering that mastery and morality are not the same thing.
“Martial arts in America is also a Black story.” — Antonio Foli, writer's statement |
FROM THE JURY “Linking classic martial arts tropes to tragic themes such as mental illness and trauma serves as a highly original and refreshing narrative choice.” “The structural use of flashbacks is exceptionally well-balanced.” “…even the dialogue scenes are written with the rhythm and high tension of a fight choreography.” — MOMO 2026 Jury |
SCRIPT CREDITS | Master |
WRITTEN BY | Antonio Foli |
SETTING | A South Side dojo, in the “Blood and Guts” era of American karate |
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SPECIAL MENTION Street MusePuccini on the Street |
Overlooked by passersby, two homeless women share an intimate moment, remembering how it once felt to be beautiful. A sleeping drunk wakes up and joins them, and the three find dignity in a Puccini aria.
The aria is “Musetta's Waltz” from Puccini's La Bohème, in which Musetta boasts of the admirers stunned by her beauty as she strolls down the street. Street Muse turns it upside down: with new lyrics, two unhoused women sing about how it feels to be seen on the street. The filmmakers set the muted colors of passersby against the vivid colors of their protagonists, and shot in a studio backlot next to an abandoned encampment in East Oakland, using shopping carts found on the site.
The film is a project of Opera Frontier, founded in Oakland by writer and producer Gail Simpson to bring classical music to bear on pressing social issues. Director Beth Cloutier is a Bay Area producer and director whose twenty-year career spans music videos, documentaries and television, including episodes of Breakout Kings for A&E. Both have worked with people experiencing homelessness: Cloutier as an embedded documentarian, Simpson as a hospital chaplain.
“Homelessness is hard to look at.” — Beth Cloutier and Gail Simpson, directors' statement |
FROM THE JURY “The performances do things that we rarely see in short film competitions.” “A very clever idea and fun execution.” — MOMO 2026 Jury |
FILM CREDITS | Street Muse |
COUNTRY · RUNTIME | United States · 5 min |
DIRECTED BY | Beth Cloutier |
WRITTEN & PRODUCED BY | Gail Simpson |
CINEMATOGRAPHY | David Auner |
EDITING | Steve Shlisky |
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Congratulations to all of our winners and to every filmmaker in the 2026 Official Selection. Our thanks to our jury, to South Lyon Theater, our Official Venue Partner, and to everyone who joined us in the room. The Feature Film Awards are announced in our next Journal post.
MOMO INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL South Lyon, Michigan |
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