‘The Menu’ wins Fantastic Fest Audience Award, Ali Abbasi named Best Director for ‘Holy Spider’ (Full List)

Fantastic Fest 2022 has come to a close and with it the festival has announced several winners in feature and shorts categories including Eduardo Casanova’s La Pietà winning Best Picture in the main competition of features and Ali Abbasi won Best Director for Holy Spider, which was just selected by Denmark to represent it at the 95th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. Mark Mylod’s dark comedy The Menu, starring Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy, won the fest’s Audience Award.

“We really gave our jury members a tough job this year. We have no idea how they were able to choose between so many amazing films,” Festival Director Lisa Dreyer said. “We are so appreciative to all our filmmakers for sharing their phenomenal films with our audience, and the Jurors’ choices truly embody the wild and wonderful cinematic excellence we love to champion at Fantastic Fest.”

Here is the complete list of winners from Fantastic Fest 2022.

“MAIN COMPETITION” FEATURES 

Best Picture: LA PIETÀ directed by Eduardo Casanova

Best Director: Ali Abbasi for HOLY SPIDER 

“NEXT WAVE” FEATURES 

Best Picture: THE FIVE DEVILS directed by Léa Mysius

Best Director: Thomas Hardiman for MEDUSA DELUXE 

HORROR FEATURES

Best Picture: PIGGY directed by Carlota Pereda

Best Directors: Mike Mendez, Demian Rugna, Eduardo Sanchez, Gigi Saul Guerrero & Alejandro Brugués for SATANIC HISPANICS

SHORTS WITH LEGS

Best Picture: HUBBARDS directed by Kevin Ralston

Special Mention: ALEGRÍAS RIOJANAS directed by Velasco Broca

SHORT FUSE 

Best Picture: RINGWORMS directed by Will Lee

Special Mention: GNOMES directed by Ruwan Heggelman

FANTASTIC SHORTS

Best Picture: THE DIAMOND directed by Vedran Rupic

Special Mention to A MAN TREMBLES directed by Mark Chua, Lam Li Shuen (Emoumie)

DRAWN AND QUARTERED

Best Picture: A GUITAR IN THE BUCKET directed by Boyoung Kim

Special Mention to HAPPY NEW YEAR, JIM directed by Andrea Gatopoulos

AUDIENCE AWARD

THE MENU directed by Mark Mylod

Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the U.S., specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and action movies from all around the world. Fantastic Fest is held each year at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas. Alamo Drafthouse has been named the best theater in the country by Entertainment Weekly, Wired, and TIME.

Photo: Eric Zachanowich, courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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