BY KAREN BOSSICK

Arnold Schwarzenegger and his son Patrick Schwarzenegger will be among the 2025 honorees at the Sun Valley Film Festival in December.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has long had a home in Sun Valley, will receive the prestigious  Vision Award and participate in a free Coffee Talk on Saturday, Dec. 6. And Patrick Schwarzenegger will receive the Rising Star Award.

They will be honored alongside Gus Van Sant, another Vision Award recipient, who will participate in one of the festival’s popular Coffee Talks on Friday, Dec. 5.

The last Vision Award honored Demi Moore, another Wood River Valley resident.

Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, who will receive Deadline’s Disruptor Award, will take part in a Coffee Talk on Sunday, Dec. 7. Ondi Timoner will receive the Impact Award for her film highlighting the resilience of the human spirit.

The Sun Valley Film Festival will run Dec. 3-7, 2025, making the move to its new time after having been held during spring since its inception in 2012.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER is an Austrian-born American actor and a man who is regarded as one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time former bodybuilder, having won a Mr. Universe title and seven Mr. Olympia titles.

He also is a former governor of California who since has become an advocate for addressing climate change.

He uttered one of the most memorable lines in cinema history when he proclaimed, “I’ll be back,” in “The Terminator.”

Schwarzenegger’s documentary “Pumping Iron” ushered him into a career in films. They include “Conan the Barbarian,” “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” “Total Recall,” True Lies,” the comedies “Twins” and “Jingle All the Way” and the tender-hearted “Kindergarten Cop.”

GUS VAN SANT is a filmmaker whose film “Good Will Hunting” earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and Best Director. Other films include “Dead Man’s Wire,” “Drugstore Cowboy,” “My Own Private Idaho and “Elephant.”

His new film “Dead Man’s Wire” will be screened during the festival.

CHRIS BENTLEY and GREG KWEDAR are being honored with the Disruptor Award, which recognizes their innovative and impactful work.

Their most recent drama film, “Train Dreams” will be screened as part of the festival on Saturday, Dec. 6. It is an adaptation of Denis Johnson’s Pulitzer Prize finalist novella about a logger who works on building the railroad across the United States and stars Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, William H. Macy and Kerry Condon.

Academy Award-nominee Clint Bentley’s debut feature “Jockey,” about an aging jockey confronted by a rookie rider claiming to be his son, earned the AFI Audience Award. “Sing Sing,” a film about a man imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, which he co-wrote and produced with Kwedar, earned three Academy Award nominations and was named one of the AFI’s Top 10 Films of the Year, in addition to winning the 2024 SXSW Festival Audience Award, three BAFTA nominations and five Critics Choice nominations.

Kwedar’s “Transpecos,” about three Border Patrol agents confronted with an insidious plot within their own ranks, won an SXSW Audience Award. He also produced several documentaries, including “Rising from Ashes” and “Running with Beto,” which was screened in Sun Valley.

PATRICK SCHWARZENEGGER, the 32-year-old son of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, received a lot of press for his appearance in the critically acclaimed HBO series “White Lotus” and the new FX series “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez.”

He also has appeared in HBO’s “The Staircase” and “The Terminal List;” the Amazon series “Gen V” and Amy Poehler’s film “Moxie,” in addition to “Echo Boomers and “Daniel Isn’t Real,” which premiered to great reviews at the SXSW Film Festival

He will star opposite Margaret Qualley in “Love of Your Life” for Amazon MGM and in the psychological thriller “Bunker” alongside Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem.

ONDI TIMONER is being honored for her recent documentary “All the Walls Come Down,” which tells the story about a community affected by the Eaton Fire. It follows on the heels of last year’s documentary winner “Porcelain War,” which received rave reviews from the Sun Valley Film Festival audience

This year’s Sun Valley Film Festival will open with “The Brotherhood,” a documentary about the National Brotherhood of Snowsports—the first all-Black ski group. It will close with Searchlight Pictures’ “Is This Thing On?”

The feature film directed by Bradley Cooper revolves around a middle-aged man played by Will Arnett who seeks new purpose in the New York comedy scene as his marriage quietly unravels. His wife, played by Laura Dern, confronts the sacrifices she made for their family as the couple is forced to navigate co-parenting, identity and the question of whether love can take a new form.

The Festival’s full lineup showcases a wide range of narrative and documentary storytelling from emerging and established filmmakers, including:

● Above the Line (dir. Jeffrey Scott Collins) with Cedric the Entertainer, Sophia Ali and Logic in attendance

● Ask E Jean (dir. Ivy Meeropol)

● Carolina Caroline (dir. Adam Carter Rehmeier)

● The Dating Game (dir. Violet Du Feng)

● Dead Man’s Wire (dir. Gus Van Sant)

● Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul (dir. James Keach)

● Hard Twist: Through the Lens of Barbara Van Cleve (dir. Cynthia Matty-Huber)

● The Plague (dir. Charlie Pollinger)

● The Testament of Ann Lee (dir. Mona Fastvold)

● Tusker: Brotherhood of Elephants

● Train Dreams (dir. Clint Bentley

Shorts Programming

SVFF will screen over 30 shorts in select programs, including highlight conversations and several Academy Award-eligible projects like:

● All the Walls Came Down, dir. Ondi Timoner in attendance for a discussion after the screening

● All Heart, dir. Michael Govier and Will McCormack, Academy Award winners in attendance

● Go Forward, dir. Peter Cambor—NBA star Isaiah Thomas in attendance for a discussion after the

World Premiere screening

● Idaho Film Block—featuring short films shot exclusively in Idaho

● Pine, dir. Lilah Pate in attendance for a discussion after the World Premiere screening

● The New Yorker documentary series, followed by a Q&A hosted by George Prentice with Paul Moakley (Executive Producer of Video at The New Yorker).

The program includes the live action short Two People Exchanging Saliva (dir. Natalie Musteata, Alexandre Singh), animated short Criminal (dir. Robe Imbriano), and documentary short Cashing Out (dir. Matt Nadel)

● Saving Our Ancestors - Reflections by Dr. Biruté Galdikas (dir. Charles Annenberg Weingarten

● The Truck, dir. Elizabeth Rao in attendance for a discussion after the screening

● Wrecking Party, dir. Elizabeth Giamatti in attendance for a discussion after the screening

Tickets for the 2025 Sun Valley Film Festival are available now at https://sunvalleyfilmfestival.org/.