‘Hamnet’ Continues Its Winning Streak at the Virginia Film Festival
Focus Features
After taking place from October 22-26 and screening 130+ movies, the 38th annual Virginia Film Festival has officially come to a close, announcing earlier today that this year’s Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature was granted to Hamnet, directed by Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao.
Adapted from a 2020 novel of the same name, Hamnet stars Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley as William and Agnes Shakespeare, fictionalizing their shared grief after the loss of Hamnet, their only son, whose death inspired one of Shakespeare’s most famous works. Building upon Zhao’s nuanced understandings of the human spirit –– glimpsed through her earlier work, including The Rider (2017)and Nomadland (Audience Award Winner, VAFF 2020) –– Hamnet touches upon some of life’s strongest feelings: falling in love, losing those closest to you, and learning to rebuild after tragedy.
Hamnet screened to a sold-out crowd at Charlottesville’s historic Paramount Theater on Sunday afternoon as part of VAFF’s Gala section. The movie’s tremendous emotional heft was easily perceptible in the room, with audible sobs echoing throughout the theater as its shattering latter half unfolded. The movie’s win at VAFF continues its hot streak on the fall festival circuit, which also includes Audience Award victories at San Diego, Mill Valley, and Middleburg. Hamnet’s triumphs began at its International Premiere in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it scooped up the coveted People’s Choice Award, a common bellwether for a Best Picture Oscar nomination in recent decades.
Focus Features
While Hamnet’s moving performances and heartwrenching portrayal of a family in flux have been embraced by festival-goers with open arms, its box-office prospects among traditional theater audiences remain a question we will have to ponder until Thanksgiving weekend, when Focus Features is slated to release the film. Mescal’s ever-growing fanbase will be a clear draw for some viewers; however, Zhao’s career boost from Nomadland’s historic Oscar wins was unfortunately dampened by the COVID-19 pandemic, somewhat limiting the reach of her creative work.
Compared to the early frontrunners for Best Picture at the upcoming 98th Academy Awards, One Battle After Another and Sinners, Hamnet stands head and shoulders above the pack as far as its effusive sensibilities are concerned. This is a movie that you do not simply watch, but feel. Whereas audiences and critics alike have been understandably wowed by the genre-bending gravitas of the other leading contenders for Oscar nominations, they simply cannot match Hamnet’s emotional impact.
Hamnet played like gangbusters at VAFF, but it was not the only movie to do so. A program of the University of Virginia, this year’s VAFF lineup included plenty of the season’s most exciting new works of cinema, including Sentimental Value, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, The Testament of Ann Lee, and Train Dreams.
Continue reading to check out all of the big winners from the 38th annual Virginia Film Festival:
2025 VAFF Audience Awards
Narrative Feature: Hamnet
Documentary Feature: Come See Me In The Good Light
Narrative Short: Synthesize Me
Documentary Short: All the Empty Rooms
2025 VAFF Programmers Awards:
Narrative Feature: Late Shift
Documentary Feature: Ghost Elephants
Narrative Short: Nervous Energy
Documentary Short: On Beyond Fences
Additional 2025 VAFF Award Winners:
Achievement in Film Composition: Nicholas Britell (Jay Kelly)
Achievement in Film Music: Miles Caton (Sinners)
Achievement in Screenwriting: Jay Duplass (Writing for the Screen: The Baltimorons Way)
Achievement in Screenwriting: Michael Strassner (Writing for the Screen: The Baltimorons Way)
Breakthrough Director Award: HIKARI (Rental Family)
Chronicler Award: Jessica Hargrave (Come See Me In The Good Light)
Craft Award: Evgenia Alexandrova (The Secret Agent)
Craft Award: Cara Brower (Hedda)
Governor Gerald L. Baliles Founder’s Award: Chris Farina (Pep Banned)
Impresario Award: James Schamus (The Ice Storm)