Big Muddy Film Festival organizers, from left, Juno Heidbreder, Dajonea Robinson and Bipin Banjara, are finalizing plans for this year’s event, which runs March 19-21. (Photo by Russell Bailey)
March 09, 2026
SIU’s 2026 Big Muddy Film Festival features 72 films
CARBONDALE, Ill. — The longstanding Big Muddy Film Festival returns to Southern Illinois University Carbondale to showcase some of the finest works of independent filmmakers and students.
In its 48th year, the festival runs Thursday through Saturday, March 19-21, at The Varsity, 418 S. Illinois Ave. The free, public event is one of the nation’s oldest film festivals affiliated with a university. It’s widely known for strong documentaries that highlight social issues. The festival did not run one year due to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year’s celebration features 72 films — 19 experimental, 15 documentaries, 14 narratives, 13 Saluki Shorts, 10 animation and one feature film, “American Dendrite,“ a 2025 documentary by filmmaker Adam Marshall Present. The entries include films from local to international. The Saluki Shorts are student films.
Additional information, including the film schedule and related events, is available on the festival’s website and Instagram.
Special activities include workshops, panel discussions
“American Dendrite” will screen at 8:30 p.m. March 19 as part of the festival’s “Home Sweet Home” program, which is dedicated to films made in Illinois, by Illinois filmmakers. An Illinois filmmaker Q&A panel discussion precedes the film at 7:45 p.m.
“We want our audience to feel connected and inspired by the creativity in our own backyard as well as internationally. Excellence comes out of Illinois,” Dajonea Robinson said. She is a second-year doctoral student in mass communication and media arts who is heading this year’s event for a second year. “We want our community and our region to be part of this festival. The Big Muddy Film Festival is just as mine as it is yours.”
The festival will feature workshops from three jurors: post-producer Andrew Balek and screenwriter Carl Ellsworth — both SIU Carbondale alumni— along with animation filmmaker and poet Jonni Peppers-GoLions.
Balek will host his editing workshop via Zoom beginning at 1 p.m. Monday, March 16. A QR code along with link instructions to join the meeting will be available on the festival’s website and Instagram. Ellsworth’s discussion and Q&A is from 3-5 p.m. March 19 at The Varsity.
Peppers-GoLions’ workshop will be in the Communications Building Dean’s Conference Room (1032) from 1-2 p.m. Friday, March 20. Peppers-GoLions has curated a 90-minute program, “Big Muddy Transfiguration,” as part of a festival showcase and Q&A session at 5:30 p.m. March 20 at The Varsity.
Award ceremonies
The award ceremony will be streamed live from The Varsity on the festival’s Instagram and YouTube platforms at 8:30 p.m. March 21, with a reception following closing remarks. The festival’s official awards are hand-forged by the Southern Illinois Metalsmith Society (SIMS), a student-run group at SIU Carbondale. Awards will be presented in the best narrative, documentary, animation, and experimental categories.
The festival will again present three additional awards:
- Mike Covell Award — given to an alumni filmmaker in honor of festival founder and retired faculty member.
- John Michaels Social Justice Award — given in honor of a cinema student in the 1980s who earned his Master of Fine Arts degree at SIU Carbondale and who was involved in community organizing and activism before he died of brain cancer.
- Cade Bursell River Award in honor of Bursell, a retired SIU cinema professor. That award, according to Robinson, “celebrates groundbreaking films that illuminate pressing environmental issues through innovative storytelling and a deep commitment to social justice.”
(Editor’s note: Dajonea is pronounced Day-Juh-Nay.)