Matthew Shear’s ‘Fantasy Life’, ‘The Accountant 2’ Among SXSW Audience Award Winners
deadline.comSXSW on Monday said that Matthew Shear’s Fantasy Life, Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal’s reteam The Accountant 2 and Paige Bethmann’s documentary Remaining Native were among the big winners of the 32nd annual festival’s Audience Awards.
The news of the honors across the Austin fest’s competition, narrative, documentary, shorts, TV and XR Experience sidebars comes after the 2025 edition revealed its juried awards last week, with honors going to Amy Wang‘s thriller Slanted for Best Narrative Feature among others.
Fantasy Life, Shear’s feature writing and directorial debut, won the marquee Narrative Feature Audience Award. It stars Shear as a man who suffers a panic attack and stumbles into a job babysitting his psychiatrist’s three granddaughters, where he begins to fall for the girls’ mother, played by Amanda Peet.
Peet earlier won a special jury prize for acting. The Headliners section audience prize went to The Accountant 2, which gets director Gavin O’Conner and stars Affleck and Bernthal back for the sequel to the thriller almost a decade in the making.
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