THE ELISAR CABRERA DISCOVERY AWARD
THE ELISAR CABRERA DISCOVERY AWARD AT THE RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2026
It has been over two years since Elliot Grove, Founder of Raindance, and independent film director, Matt Devlen, approached me with the idea of renaming the Raindance BFI Discovery Award to the Elisar Cabrera Discovery Award. They were both determined to show their gratitude for Elisar’s almost 30 years of working for Raindance and his unwavering support, encouragement and promotion of many young independent filmmakers and his unsung contribution to independent filmmaking in general. Having recently lost Elisar to metastatic cancer, I, as his mother, was naturally both extremely touched and absolutely delighted by their suggestion.
The 2024 Award
The first year, 2024, the Award was won by the highly original Korean film, “Sleep”, directed by the supremely talented first-time writer-director, Jason Yu. The film, whose storyline is a twisted psychological nightmare about how a husband’s increasingly bizarre nighttime behaviour takes a menacing turn, created a huge buzz on the Festival circuit and, later, became a box office hit and something of a cult movie to a worldwide audience of horror movie fans. Knowing that Elisar himself was a lifelong horror fan, I thought the choice of “Sleep” was, somehow, very fitting. Jason Yu himself was thrilled at the recognition of his first film, saying, that as a debut director, “I was very nervous that I wouldn’t be taken seriously by my actors and crew because I was easily the least experienced person on the set.” But once he started filming, he admitted, his nerves vanished. And he came to the realization from the success of his film that “horror film fans are indeed the best audience in the world!”
The 2025 Award
Last year, 2025, the winning film was from India, entitled “Srishti”, directed by the first time director, Paul Antar. Like its predecessor, “Sleep”, Paul Antar’s “Srishti” could also be described as a horror movie although it is also more about unravelling a mystery. Its storyline about a photojournalist, plagued by childhood guilt, being lured to the forbidden forests of the Himalayas where he unearths secrets that slowly unravel his mind and change the very nature of reality. Unlike Yu, Paul Antar was quiet about his win at Raindance, and left the words of gratitude to his film company Raging Films. “We’re thrilled to share that Srishti has won the Elisar Cabrera Discovery Award for Best Debut Feature at Raindance 2025! Huge congratulations to our brilliant director Paul Antar, whose vision and persistence shaped Srishti into the haunting, meditative film it is. And a heartfelt thank you to our incredible cast and crew who gave this story their all, often in the most challenging of circumstances.”
The 2026 Award
This year, 2026, I am on the Jury of the Elisar Cabrera Discovery Award and, as his mother, I couldn’t be more proud of my son and grateful to the four people, Elliot Grove, Matt Devlen, Cass Rawat and Ian Powell who conceived, promoted and fought for this Award in his name and which has now become an eagerly anticipated and very coveted Award on the Film Festival circuit.