The 35th Philadelphia Film Festival gave its narrative audience award to Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid and its narrative jury prize to Lance Hammer’s Queen at Sea, Variety reported exclusively on 4 November 2026. Organisers say the edition drew the highest attendance in the festival’s history. Variety’s report is the source for the prize list below; a precise headcount was not published in that account.
Key facts
- 35th Philadelphia Film Festival; organiser-reported record attendance (figure undisclosed in Variety)
- Narrative audience: Club Kid (Jordan Firstman); narrative jury: Queen at Sea (Lance Hammer)
- Documentary jury: Seized; documentary audience tie: Naza and Once Upon a Time in Harlem
- Local audience Big Phan; Filmadelphia feature The Haunting of Pennhurst; directing honour Tim Blake Nelson; full lists below
For US specialty distributors and awards strategists, PFF is a mid-autumn regional stop with parallel jury and audience tracks after Telluride, Toronto and New York. Firstman told Variety the film’s family-drama layer reached viewers beyond the New York club scene on screen, including older festival-goers and younger New York Film Festival crowds.
Narrative and documentary winners
Club Kid took the narrative audience award. Hammer’s Queen at Sea, his return feature after a long gap since Ballast, took the jury’s best narrative feature prize, with an honourable mention for Kohei Kadowaki’s We Are Aliens. On the documentary side, Sharon Liese’s Seized won the jury award, while Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s Naza tied for the documentary audience prize with David Greaves’s Once Upon a Time in Harlem, conceived by William Greaves. Big Phan, Hoag Kepner’s Phillie Phanatic biopic, won the local-feature audience award.
Tim Blake Nelson received the artistic achievement in directing honour for The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd. Filmadelphia prizes went to Mike Attie, Katarina Poljak and Nathan Stenberg’s The Haunting of Pennhurst (best Filmadelphia feature) and Dana Nachman’s The Second Life of Freddie Nole (best Filmadelphia short), underlining the festival’s local filmmaking strand.
Full audience awards
- Narrative feature: Club Kid, directed by Jordan Firstman
- Documentary feature (tie): Naza, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor; and Once Upon a Time in Harlem, directed by David Greaves, conceived by William Greaves
- Local feature: Big Phan, directed by Hoag Kepner
Full jury awards
- Best narrative feature: Queen at Sea, directed by Lance Hammer
- Honourable mention (narrative): We Are Aliens, directed by Kohei Kadowaki
- Best documentary feature: Seized, directed by Sharon Liese
- Honourable mention (documentary): Rehearsals for a Revolution, directed by Pegah Ahangarani
- Honourable mention for a good time: The Match, directed by Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco
- Best short film: Living with a Visionary, directed by Stephen P. Neary
- Honourable mention (short): Jimmy’s Custom Coffin, directed by James P. Gannon
- Honourable mention (short): Because Today Is Saturday, directed by Alice Eça Guimarães
- Best Filmadelphia feature: The Haunting of Pennhurst, directed by Mike Attie, Katarina Poljak and Nathan Stenberg
- Honourable mention (Filmadelphia feature): I Don’t Want to Drink Your Blood Anymore, directed by Andrew Sullivan
- Best Filmadelphia short: The Second Life of Freddie Nole, directed by Dana Nachman
- Honourable mention for best cast: Six Sixty Six, directed by Jim Boemio
- Honourable mention for most innovative: The Wonka of Worcester, directed by Justin O’Neill
- Artistic achievement in directing: Tim Blake Nelson, for The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd
No prize money, rights deals or further attendance metrics appeared in Variety’s exclusive. The attendance record is organiser-reported.
Related FilmBunch festival coverage includes the Tokyo International Film Festival awards, Seville’s opening and competition slate and FilmFestival Cottbus’s opening. More under Festivals & Markets.
Our reading
A single-source exclusive is enough to report the board and the attendance claim, with the outlet credited in the body. Buyers should treat the record-attendance line as organiser-reported until Filmadelphia publishes a figure. The dual narrative winners keep both a specialty comedy-drama (Club Kid) and Hammer’s return (Queen at Sea) in the autumn awards conversation without replacing larger festival laurels already decided.