SXSW Sydney crowns 2025 Screen Festival winners

The 2025 SXSW Sydney Screen Festival has wrapped with horror-comedy The Weed Eaters taking out the coveted award for Best Feature Film, cementing the event’s reputation as a launchpad for genre-bending storytelling.

Directed by Callum Devlin and produced by Causeway Films (Talk to Me, The Babadook), the New Zealand film blends dark humour with slow-burn horror.

Starring Alice May Connolly (The Power of the Dog) and featuring cameos from Paul Kean of The Bats, and comedian David Correos, it follows a group of friends whose idyllic New Year’s getaway in rural Canterbury spirals into chaos after a batch of cursed weed unleashes nightmarish consequences.

The Weed Eaters

Found footage and cult favourites

The Audience Award went to Australian writer-director Jorrden Daley for Welcome Back To My Channel, a grisly found-footage horror that leans into influencer culture with unnerving realism.

The film follows Suki, an online content creator, whose trip home to Australia turns into a violent descent into terror... and cannibalism.

The locally produced Best Episodic winner, Lake Boga, created by Ben Bryan and Nick Capper, brings a distinctly Australian edge to the revenge-thriller genre.

The series follows Nathan, an ex-military assassin on a mission to dismantle the state’s meth trade, who becomes entangled with a small-town pub owner running her own operation.

Lake Boga

Short form, music, and new wave highlights

Australian filmmaker Julian Tynan took home Best Short Film for Siblings, a darkly absurd comedy about two siblings competing in a series of bizarre games for a ride home, only to find something sinister beneath the surface.

The Best Music Video award went to Party Dozen’s Coup de Gronk, directed by Ollie Jones, while Lucinda De Palma’s Rejoice earned Best New Wave for its punchy depiction of youthful rebellion and restless energy.

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