MIFF28 Awards Maine’s Best Films

WATERVILLE – The 28th Maine International Film Festival (MIFF) closed Sunday, July 20, in Waterville, Maine with the annual presentation of the juried Tourmaline Prizes, recognizing the very best Maine-made feature-length and short film productions of the year. This year’s jury honored Mia Weinberger’s feature documentary A Moment in the Sun and Heidi Burkey’s documentary short Final Frontier.

The prizes, sponsored this year by the Maine Film Office and Unity Foundation, are named for Maine’s state gem, the tourmaline, and award $5,000 to the best Maine-made feature-length film and $2,500 to the best Maine-made short. The 2025 jury consisted of Maine filmmaker and educator Kerry Laitala, Portland-based documentarian Erin Murphy, and Dr. Ben Akoh, founder and president of the African Movie Festival in Manitoba. Together they deliberated over four Maine features and 21 shorts in competition for the festival’s top honors.

MIFF 2025 Tourmaline: Photo by John Meader. The Tourmaline Prizes, named for Maine’s state gem, recognize the best made-in-Maine feature and short film productions of the year.“MIFF audiences always enjoy the opportunity to celebrate stories told about and within our state,” said Mike Perreault, executive director of the Maine Film Center. “It truly takes a community—and deep involvement of people who don’t consider themselves filmmakers—to make film productions, like the 25 that were exhibited during the festival, happen here. It’s an even greater honor to recognize significant achievement in made-in-Maine filmmaking through our Tourmaline Prizes. Congratulations to the filmmakers, subjects, and all those involved in telling these compelling stories.”

This year’s Tourmaline-winner in the feature category, A Moment in the Sun, chronicles the days leading up to the 2024 total solar eclipse in the small town of Houlton, seat of Maine’s rural Aroostook County, and the final stop along the United States’ Path of Totality.

MIFF 2025 Tourmaline Weinberger: Photo by John Meader. Mia Weinberger won Best Feature Film for her solar eclipse documentary A Moment in the Sun.“We were so honored to win the Tourmaline Prize for Best Feature at MIFF 2025 for our film A Moment in the Sun,” Weinberger said after the festival. “MIFF was a wonderful experience. They have a huge team of super hard-working, nice, and welcoming staff and volunteers. I would definitely recommend this festival to fellow filmmakers and would love to return one day!”

From a field of 21 shorts, the jury selected Final Frontier to receive the Best Short Film Tourmaline Prize. In Heidi Burkey’s documentary, audiences meet a renowned Maine painter grappling with blindness while completing the centerpiece for his first art show in years.

“I’m deeply grateful to the Maine International Film Festival and the jury for recognizing Final Frontier with the Tourmaline Prize,” Burkey said. “This film has been a six-year labor of love, and it would not exist without the trust and generosity of Denis Boudreau and his family, who allowed me into their home and their lives. I’m humbled to have helped bring it to the screen and grateful to them for receiving this award on behalf of the film.”

Also during MIFF, the Maine Student Film + Video Festival showcased 10 projects by the state’s most promising K–12 filmmakers with the chance to win professional filmmaking gear or a $500 grand prize sponsored by Maine Public. The MSFVF jury selected Ari F. Mazur’s stop-motion animated action film The World After for the grand prize. Winners, Runners-up, and Honorable Mentions were also named in the Narrative, Documentary, and Creative categories.

Thousands attended MIFF28, enjoying the opportunity to see 111 films across 10 days, including Maine-made productions, international movies from more than 40 countries, rediscoveries of beloved classics, world premieres, and a selection of films starring MIFF Mid-Life Achievement Award honoree Clive Owen. Audiences and filmmakers alike can now mark their calendars for July 10–19, 2026 when MIFF returns to Waterville for its 29th installment.

With the festival concluded, the Maine Film Center has resumed regular run films, including Oh, Hi! and 76 Days Adrift, both of which were popular screenings during MIFF. More MIFF-screened films, including Relay and Folktales, will return to MFC in the coming weeks and months for theatrical releases. Showtimes and sneak previews are available at mainefilmcenter.org.

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