EXCLUSIVE: Amanda Warren (The Leftovers) and Evan Jonigkeit (The Hunting Wives) are currently shooting lead roles in Door, an indie sci-fi horror film also starring Akira Jackson (It Ends), River Blossom (Abbott Elementary), Johnny Sibilly (Hacks), and Henry Ian Cusick (Lost).

Marking the feature directorial debut of Sara Magness and Wil Magness, who also wrote the screenplay, and shooting in Portland, Oregon, Door tells the story of a family whose world is shattered after a father unknowingly opens a door that leads to realities shaped by the subconscious of whoever enters.

Sara Magness, Wil Magness and Stacy Lorts (I Am: Celine Dion, Fork in the Road) are producing under their Why Because Films banner, with Courtney Tait co-producing. Casting is by Jessica Munks and Simon Max Hill.

Filmmakers Sara and Wil Magness told us, “Door explores family, loss, identity and the destructive impulse that comes from being unable to let go. The story draws from traumatic moments in our own lives, as well as our interest in how extreme trauma can make us become versions of ourselves we barely recognize. That personal connection is at the heart of the film, and our cast has brought immense depth and emotional truth to the characters. Their incredible talent has elevated the story in ways we could have never imagined.”

Best known for roles on shows like The Leftovers, Dickinson and The Night Agent, Warren stars alongside Boyd Holbrook, Kenneth Branagh and Hiam Abbass in the war drama Atonement, which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight this year. Upcoming, she’ll be seen in two Netflix projects: the Jamie Foxx drama Fight for ’84 as well as the series Myron Bolitar. She is repped by Buchwald, Alchemy Entertainment and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis.

An Emmy nominee seen on shows like The Hunting Wives, Archive 81 and Sweetbitter, Jonigkeit starred alongside Rebecca Hall in the Searchlight horror film The Night House, with additional credits including indies such as Together Together and Bone Tomahawk. He is repped by Paradigm, Mosaic and Schreck Rose Dapello.

Wil and Sara Magness’ breakout sci-fi short, The Manual, screened at 30 international festivals, earning 18 nominations and 14 awards including Best Short Film and Best Director before being acquired by Gunpowder + Sky’s streamer Dust, where it has been viewed more than 800,000 times. Their follow-up short, Angel Hair, is currently on the festival circuit.

Jackson is repped by Artium Talent and Mosaic; Cusick by Buchwald and Luber Roklin Entertainment; Sibilly by Innovative Artists Entertainment and Authentic; and Blossom by The Wayne Agency.

The Film Independent Spirit Awards has added two new categories: the Digital Creator Award and Best International First Feature. They will be given out at the 2027 celebration taking place on March 6, where films that have played at the Berlinale will now also qualify for consideration.

“Independent storytelling has never been confined to a single format, platform or geography and neither should the Spirit Awards,” Film Independent President Juan Devis said via statement. “These new categories reflect the broader creative ecosystem we’re building at Film Independent — one that supports bold, original storytellers, from emerging digital creators to first-time international filmmakers.”

The new creator prize joins the Spirit Awards’ existing Emerging Filmmaker category, which includes Someone to Watch, Truer Than Fiction and Producers Award, and like those, it will award the winner with an unrestricted grant of $25k.

The new international category will recognize non-U.S. films that mark the filmmaker’s narrative feature debut. The addition of the Berlinale expands the festivals eligible for Indie Spirit consideration beyond such North American fests as Sundance, Telluride, Toronto and SXSW. “These additions reflect Film Independent’s continued commitment to recognizing independent filmmaking and creating pathways for distinctive work from storytellers around the world,” Film Independent said in a statement.

Nominations for the 42nd Film Independent Spirit Awards will be announced Dec. 2, 2026, followed by the Nominee Brunch on Jan. 9 at the London West Hollywood, where Emerging Filmmaker Awards will be presented.

Spirit Award voters are filmmakers, film industry leaders and cinephiles who are members of Film Independent.

Below are deadlines for Spirit Awards Submissions:

Film
Early Deadline: Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026
Regular Deadline: Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026
Final Deadline: Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026
Arts Circle, Filmmaker Pro, Secret Member, and Film Independent Fellows with Memberships Extended Deadline: Friday, Oct. 2, 2026

Television
Regular Deadline: Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026
Final Deadline: Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026
Arts Circle, Filmmaker Pro, Secret Member, and Film Independent Fellows with Memberships Extended Deadline: Friday, Sept. 18, 2026

Digital Creators
Early Deadline: Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026
Regular Deadline: Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026
Final Deadline: Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026
Arts Circle, Filmmaker Pro, Secret Member, and Film Independent Fellows with Memberships Extended Deadline: Friday, Oct. 2, 2026

Hollywood Climate Summit and Jackson Wild have set finalists for their first joint awards ceremony Nov. 10 in Los Angeles spanning narrative film & TV from Train Dreams and Hacks, to unscripted and documentary This is a Gardening Show and Nuisance Bear.

Selected from over 500 global submissions, finalists represent “the most impactful, innovative, and inspiring storytelling,” the groups said.

Projects span the past two years. The joint awards will likely run every other year to ensure sufficient environmental narrative content.

HCS is the host of an increasingly popular annual summit in LA and provides a year-round community connecting entertainment professionals with climate experts. Jackson Wild, based in Jackson, Wyoming, has been a global leader in nature and conservation media for over 30 years and hosted its own annual awards. The organizations joined forces on the awards earlier this year, expanding Jackson Wild’s mostly documentary and social content to narrative features and television, podcasts, games, digital media and comedy.

“In this time of increasing environmental urgency, we must amplify and support the creatives finding new depths in climate and nature storytelling, and expand our thinking as an industry on what that storytelling can look like. This partnership expands that genre-bending creative spectrum, connects the communities making it happen, and puts a shared vision of a better world at the center,” said Heather Fipps, Executive Director of Hollywood Climate Summit.

“This year’s finalists invite audiences into the natural world through film, games, podcasts, and so much more, each one a testament to the extraordinary quality of storytelling happening right now,” said Christie Quinn, Executive Director of Jackson Wild. “Reaching people across genres and formats has never been more vital to the future of our planet, and celebrating the best of today’s storytelling is how we inspire what comes next.”

Finalists

NARRATIVE FEATURE

Bugonia —Element Pictures / Square Peg / CJ Enm Production in association with Pith and Fruit Tree Enterprises, Focus Features 

Remarkably Bright Creatures — Night Owl Stories, Netflix 

The Wild Robot — DreamWorks Animation, Universal Pictures

Train Dreams — Black Bear Pictures, Kamala Films, Netflix

Twisters — Amblin Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures

NARRATIVE SHORT   

Heat Me — ABCinema, in co-production with Orama Productions. 

MotherEarth Inc.  — Co-directed by Heather Mingo and Isabel Siragusa

Two Breaths — A film by Kateryna Kurganska

Wowsabout — The Jim Henson Company, in association with PBS 

TV SERIES – SCRIPTED DRAMA

Families Like Ours — Netflix (Denmark)

Lead Children — Netflix (Poland)

Radioactive Emergency — Netflix

The Last of Us — HBO Max

TV SERIES – SCRIPTED COMEDY

Four Seasons — Universal Television, Netflix

Hacks — Universal Television in association with Paulilu, First Thought Productions, Fremulon Productions, 3 Arts Entertainment

North of North — Netflix

Rage — Producciones Mandarina for HBO Max

TV SERIES – UNSCRIPTED

Building Outside the Lines — Painless TV, Magnolia Network

Réabhlóid Ar Chul An Tí / F* the Lawn— New Decade Films, Pier to Pier Media, SEETREE GmbH

The Wild Ones — Offspring Films, AppleTV+

This is a Gardening Show — Radical Media, Netflix

VIDEO GAME

Flock Around — Secret Plan Games

The Guardian of Nature — Inlusio Interactive

Planet Pigeon — Cracked Cubes and Thirteen Productions LLC, Minecraft EDU

Two Falls (Nishu Takuatshina) — Unreliable Narrators

COMEDY SPECIAL

Climate Science Translated — Houseband, Beyond The Deck, Utopia Bureau, Climate Science Breakthrough

Funeral for a Glacier — Day Two Productions, Green Olive Creative

Green Goddesses Take New York — UnchainedTV, CaveLight Films 

Slick Burn — Petty Victories

DIGITAL SERIES

Climate Town — Climate Town Productions

Do You Even Care? — Yellow Dot Studios

Slick — Carmack Productions

Study Hall Sustainability — Complexly, Arizona State University

The Firepit — United By Nature (powered by Nature Is Nonpartisan), Shelton Films

PODCAST

The Climate Denier’s Playbook — 400 Parts Per Million LLC

Sabotage — Good Luck Media, Yellow Dot Studios

The Last City — Wondery

Threshold — Aurice Productions

JACKSON WILD FINALISTS BY CATEGORY

FEATURE

Checkpoint Zoo — Ghost Robot, Appian Way, Noah Media Group, After Hours, Abramorama

Derek vs Derek — The Slate Works and Damer Films

Nuisance Bear — MUBI, A24

We, The Hated — A Firebreak Films production in association with Passion Planet, BFI/Doc Society, Bertha Foundation, Distributed by Propagate

LIMITED SERIES

Animal Oddballs — National Geographic, Wildstar Films, and Maximum Effort

Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age — BBC Studios in association with Apple

Secrets of the Bees — National Geographic and Silverback Films

Wild Side of the Moon — Produced by Humble Bee Films for Sky and Love Nature

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

Between Breaths — A Film by Florian Ledoux and Jozef Kaut

Chuuraa — A film by Evgenia Arbugaeva. Supported by National Geographic Society.

Plant Life — Speculative Films, Tangled Bank Studios, Catapult Film Fund, Berkeley Film Foundation

SILA — National Geographic Society, TENT Film

Wild East — Maia Wikler Productions, Sideyard Studios

INVESTIGATIVE

Rhapsody on the Outlaw Ocean — A Film by Ian Urbina and William Segal

Sentient — In Films Pty Ltd, Dogwoof, Madman Entertainment

The Last Place on Earth — Oceanic Preservation Society

PEOPLE & NATURE

Bucks Harbor — Two Wolves Films, National Geographic Society

The Tale of Silyan — National Geographic Documentary Films,  Ciconia Film, Concordia Studio, The Corner Shop

To Hold a Mountain — Directed by Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić, Produced by Biljana Tutorov for Wake Up Films, In association with Points North Institute, Catapult Film Fund, Chicken & Egg Films. With the support of InMaat, IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund, Doc Society, Meadow Fund, Secret Sauce Media, Eurimages, Film Centre of Montenegro, Film Center Serbia, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, CNC, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur région, Slovenian Film Centre, Viba Film, Croatian Audiovisual Centre, UNIQA SEE Future Foundation

PLANET IN CRISIS

The Caldera — ITVS, Independent Lens, Grasso Films

The Plastic Detox — The Production credits should be: A Netflix Documentary | An OPS Productions, An L&T Productions, With Minderoo Pictures and Concordia Studio, In association  with City Hill Arts, Bay Bridge Productions and Diamond Docs

Time and Water — National Geographic Documentary Films, Sandbox, Signpost Pictures, Ninmah Foundation, Compass Films

We, The Hated — A Firebreak Films production in association with Passion Planet, BFI/Doc Society, Bertha Foundation. Distributed by Propagate

CINEMATOGRAPHY

A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough — A Netflix Documentary | A Silverback Films Production
Cinematographers: Ben Cherry, Ewan Dryburgh, Benjamin Sadd and Toby Strong

Animal Oddballs: Daringly Different — National Geographic, Wildstar Films, and Maximum Effort
Cinematographers: Chris Watts, Simon De Glanville, Jeff Hester, Tom Rowland, Christian Marot, Andrew Studer, Olly Jelley, Hayes Baxley, Connor Gallagher

Muskox: Survival in the Arctic — Stay Wild Studio, Distributed by Off the Fence
Cinematographer: Chris Schmid

Secrets of the Bees: The Hive — National Geographic and Silverback Films
Cinematographers: John Brown, Alastair MacEwen