Audiences at the 34th Hamptons International Film Festival voted "La Bola Negra" Best Narrative Feature, handing Spain's Oscar submission another audience prize on October 11 and extending a run that started in Toronto.

The festival ran October 2 to 11 and staged 205 screenings drawn from more than 140 features and shorts. Audience ballots, not jury votes, decided the two marquee feature awards — a mechanism that matters here, because the same voting body in Toronto has historically functioned as an early signal in the Academy race.

What did the audience awards change?

"La Bola Negra", directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, arrived at Hamptons as Spain's official nominee for Best International Feature at the upcoming Academy Awards. It had already won the Toronto audience award, often cited as an Oscar bellwether. The Hamptons result gives the film a second North American audience win inside a month.

"Elsinore" used the festival differently. Simon Stone's film, starring Andrew Scott, made its East Coast premiere at Hamptons rather than competing fresh territory. It had won the international people's choice award at Toronto and collected prizes at other festivals in recent weeks. The premiere kept the film in front of East Coast voters and press without adding a new competitive result.

The takeaway: two Toronto breakouts left Hamptons with their momentum intact, and one added a measurable audience-vote win.

What did the juries decide?

The Narrative Competition jury — Cara Cusumano, Jeremy O. Harris, and David Rooney — described "La Bola Negra" in a statement as "a triptych of queer desire, queer memory and queer resistance weaves together an epic story using revisionist history and builds to an emotional climax that rips to the core."

The same jury gave a Special Mention to "The Guest", directed by Mads Mengel.

On the documentary side, Best Documentary Feature went to "If Pigeons Turned to Gold". Documentary Competition jury members Carlos A. Gutiérrez, Mark Obenhaus, and Sky Sitney called it "a bold, deeply personal story of the filmmaker's own family struggles with addiction. It is told with provocative rawness and inventiveness."

Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw's "Burgundy" captured the documentary audience award, splitting the documentary field between jury and crowd.

Which specialty awards went where?

"Naza", directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, received the Victor Rabinowitz & Joanne Grant Award for Social Justice. The film, a documentary portrait of Israeli military attacks on Palestinian communities, has drawn packed screenings and ovations alongside protests and controversy. The award recognizes a film that exemplifies peace, equality, global justice and civil liberties.

The remaining honors spread across the program:

• Junior Jury Award (East Hampton High School panel): "Mouse"
• Artemis Rising Foundation Raise the Vibration Award for Social Impact: "The Drug in Our Pocket" and "A Song for the Snow Lion"
• Peter Macgregor-Scott Memorial Award: "Laser-Gato"
• Sherzum Award, for films tackling LGBTQ+ people, issues and concerns: "What Will I Become?" and "Welcome to Paris"
• Brizzolara Family Foundation Award for Films of Conflict & Resolution: "The Choice"
• Suffolk County Next Exposure Grant: "Barbizon"
• Zelda Penzel "Giving Voice to the Voiceless" Award: "Wild Inside"

New York Women in Film & Television also presented awards for excellence: "Ben'Imana" took the documentary category and "The Drug in Our Pocket" took the narrative category.

For the Oscar race, the Hamptons results tighten one thread: "La Bola Negra" now holds audience awards from two major North American festivals, and audience heat has preceded international-feature nominations before.