Sedona International Film Festival

The 32nd Annual Sedona International Film Festival runs February 21 through March 1, 2026, transforming this Arizona canyon town into a premier destination for independent cinema. With over 150 films screening across four intimate venues, this festival—named by MovieMaker Magazine as one of the “25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World”—delivers what Hollywood megaplexes cannot: personal filmmaker encounters, desert-wrapped theater lobbies, and evenings where Oak Creek’s murmur accompanies credits rolling.

The 2026 edition opens with a centennial tribute to Marilyn Monroe and closes with Broadway star Ramin Karimloo, while Oscar-nominated documentary “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” anchors a lineup that regularly predicts awards season. For travelers who believe great destinations combine culture with landscape, Sedona offers something singular: world-class cinema minutes from world-class water.

Four women and a Sundance dream built something lasting

The festival exists because four Sedona residents—Marion Herrman, Lori Seymour, Pinky Greenberg, and Shirlin Hyatt—attended Sundance together in 1994 and returned with a conviction: “We can do this. We have got to try this in Sedona.” Their first effort in April 1995 was a two-and-a-half-day affair showcasing 30 films. Three decades later, Executive Director Patrick Schweiss, who has led the festival since 2004, programs over 170 films annually and welcomes 10,000 patrons over nine days.

“My favorite thing is to stand in the back of the theatre and hear the audience respond,” Schweiss has said. “When a film is so powerful that you can hear a pin drop as the credits roll and no one wants to leave their seat.”

That intimacy defines the Sedona experience. Every screening includes a Q&A with filmmakers present—typically 100 to 120 directors and producers participate each year—plus roughly 10 workshops that regularly sell out to standing room only.

Where AIDS activism and professional dance named two theaters

The festival’s heart beats at 2030 West State Route 89A, where two purpose-built cinemas sit side by side in a converted shopping plaza.

Mary D. Fisher Theatre opened February 18, 2012, funded primarily by its namesake—political activist, artist, and AIDS advocate Mary Fisher. Best known for her landmark 1992 “A Whisper of AIDS” speech at the Republican National Convention (ranked among the 100 best American speeches of the 20th century), Fisher contracted HIV from her second husband and became a global emissary for UNAIDS. A longtime Sedona philanthropist, she donated the capital to transform a former bank building into a 99-seat art house venue with a 10-foot-deep stage for live performances.

Next door, the Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre opened June 19, 2022, with 43 seats designed for intimate viewing. The space exists because Alice Gill-Sheldon’s husband Alan decided the best 75th birthday gift for his wife—a professional modern dancer who performed in New York City for two decades—was naming rights to Sedona’s newest cinema. “Growing up, my mother would take us to the movies all the time,” Gill-Sheldon told the Sedona Red Rock News. “I think of the movies as a bit of a sanctuary.”

Additional screenings fill Harkins Sedona 6 (2081 W. Highway 89A) and the 750-seat Sedona Performing Arts Center (995 Upper Red Rock Loop Road), where the final day’s “Festival Favorites” encores play to packed houses.

From Diane Baker to Jeremy Piven: the celebrity draw

The festival has hosted an extraordinary roster of filmmakers and performers. The 2025 edition honored Diane Baker with a Lifetime Achievement Award—the actress whose five-decade career spans The Diary of Anne Frank to Silence of the Lambs—while Jeremy Piven received a Career Achievement Award and screened The Performance, about a Jewish entertainer whose troupe performs for Hitler.

Other recent honorees include:

• Jacqueline Bisset (2023 Lifetime Achievement)
• Randal Kleiser (2024 Lifetime Achievement for Directing, director of Grease)
• Lasse Hallström (Oscar-nominated Swedish director)
• Bob Mackie (2025 tribute to the legendary costume designer)
• Wendie Malick (Outstanding Actress, 2024)

The historical guest list reads like a Hollywood encyclopedia: Susan Sarandon, Rob Reiner, Richard Dreyfuss, Michael Moore, John Waters, Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, Ed Asner, Nick Nolte, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, and Elizabeth Banks have all made the pilgrimage.

For 2026, the festival has announced Tony Award winner John Rubinstein performing his one-man show “Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground” as a pre-festival kickoff on February 20.

Award categories that span from rattlesnake indies to global documentaries

The competition includes Director’s Choice Awards across more than 20 categories—Best Feature Drama, Best International Documentary, Best Environmental Documentary Short, Best Student Short—plus Audience Choice Awards determined by festival-goers’ ballots. The Marion Herrman Excellence in Filmmaking Award, named for the jazz-singer co-founder who served 18 years on the board before her 2012 death, honors exceptional craft.

Recent winners reveal the festival’s range. The 2025 Best Documentary, Zurawski v Texas, tackled reproductive rights. Best Environmental Documentary As the Tide Comes In addressed climate coastal erosion. Sweetwater, the story of Harlem Globetrotters phenom Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, won Best Ensemble Cast. The 2024 Best of Fest Narrative, Driving Madeleine by director Christian Carion, followed a Parisian taxi driver and her elderly passenger.

Films premiering at Sedona frequently graduate to wider acclaim. Brian Cox generated Oscar buzz after his Sedona appearance in The Etruscan Smile. The documentary Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory won the Marion Herrman Award before achieving international distribution.

Tickets and timing: the logistics of a sold-out festival

Individual screening tickets run $18 for non-members, $15 for SIFF members. But serious attendees purchase packages: a 10-ticket pack costs $150 (or $125 for students), while a 20-ticket pack drops the per-film price to approximately $13.

For full immersion, the Gold Priority Pass at $525 grants advance seat selection and one complimentary party. The Platinum “All-Access” Pass at $1,170 unlocks VIP filmmaker lounge access, red carpet receptions at venues including Mariposa, Enchantment Resort, and Poco Diablo Resort, plus the Awards Brunch.

The critical dates for 2026:

• December 1, 2025: Passes go on sale
• December 31, 2025: Early-bird pricing expires
• Monday, February 2, 2026 at 10 AM Arizona time: Platinum and Gold holders select films
• Monday, February 9: Package holders select films
• Monday, February 16: Individual tickets open to public

For sold-out screenings, a rush line forms at venues at 5:30 PM. Five minutes before showtime, any unsold seats go to standby—one ticket per person, no guarantees.

Creek-carved canyons: Sedona’s 10,000-year relationship with water

The water story here predates Hollywood by millennia. Oak Creek, the perennial stream that carved this canyon, has sustained human habitation for 10,000 to 12,000 years. The Sinagua people established agricultural settlements around 650 CE, developing irrigation systems that—remarkably—still function today. The creek enabled the fruit orchards that drew Anglo-American settlers beginning with Jim Thompson in 1876 and later attracted filmmakers seeking dramatic backdrops for westerns.

Oak Creek Canyon stretches 12 miles between Sedona and Flagstaff, its red rock walls rising 800 to 2,000 feet above a riparian corridor of cottonwoods and ponderosa pines. Unlike most Arizona waterways, this creek flows year-round—a rarity that creates swimming opportunities unusual for the desert Southwest.

Slide Rock State Park, seven miles north of downtown (15-minute drive), draws nearly 280,000 visitors annually to its 80-foot natural water slide—algae-slicked sandstone descending into pools where John Wayne cooled off between scenes of Angel and the Badman (1946). The 43-acre park preserves the historic Pendley Homestead, an apple orchard dating to 1912, with fruit still harvested each fall.

Closer options include Grasshopper Point (two miles north), a shaded swimming hole with cliff jumping, and Crescent Moon Ranch (five miles west), where Oak Creek reflects Cathedral Rock in what may be Arizona’s most photographed water scene. The West Fork Trail—frequently called Sedona’s finest hike—crosses the creek 13 times in its first three miles.