Alabama will be watching Sunday night when “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and its co-director Daniel Scheinert and editor Paul Rogers (both Birmingham natives) go for the gold during the 95th Annual Academy Awards.

Scheinert recently threw a shoutout to his hometown Sidewalk Film Festival at the Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, where the film swept every category in which it was nominated and won the most awards for a single film in the 38-year history of the show. As they took the stage, the Daniels made sure to thank those who inspired them early in their artistic journeys.

After his filmmaking partner Daniel Kwan shouted out out a few names, Scheinert interjected with a mention of his hometown fest: “Everyone at the Sundance Labs, the folks at the Spirit Awards, the folks at the Sidewalk Film Festival who believed in me.”

So what did Sidewalk think about their big shoutout?

“My phone exploded with text messages, Facebook messages, ‘Oh my gosh, are you watching this?’” Sidewalk executive director Chloe Cook told AL.com. “My personal reaction was I feel like Daniel’s acknowledgement of Sidewalk in that setting, along with lots of other individuals and organizations that he had longstanding relationships with, I think it’s really indicative of who he is as a person.”

Cook said while she does not know Scheinert as well personally, the few occasions she has met him have made for memorable and positive experiences.

“My encounters with him over the 15 or so years that I’ve been at Sidewalk have always led me to believe that he’s really just quite genuine and very full of heart and very aware of the fact that he’s from Alabama,” she said. “And that his path is not one that’s been walked by many other Alabamians. I feel like all those things sort of added together. I wasn’t surprised that he acknowledged the relationship with Sidewalk. I was thrilled by it, but I wasn’t surprised because I feel like it’s in line with who he is as a person.”

The moment was especially gratifying for the nonprofit that works to cultivate artists in Birmingham and Alabama through Scramble competitions, workshops, panels and the festival itself. Film fans can see Sidewalk’s impact in many places, but to hear an artist on that large a stage reference people at the festival believing in him and his talent clearly meant a lot.

“I think it means a tremendous amount to the organization as a whole,” Cook said, who credited Sidewalk alumni like co-founder Eric Jambor and former programmer Kyle McKinnon, who worked or participated in competitions in which Scheinert participated as an aspiring artist. “I think there are so many people over the course of history at Sidewalk that really felt like Daniel had something special and a very unique perspective and voice, and at the very least encouraged that and created an environment for him as well as others to express that.”

Watch Scheinert’s 2005 Sidewalk Scramble entry “Brax to the Max” below.

One year, for his older brother Brett’s birthday, Scheinert’s parents Ken and Becky gifted tickets to the Sidewalk Film Festival. They chaperoned a group of teenagers, including tagalong Daniel, as the kids became enamored with the experience. He would intern at the festival in high school and participate in Sidewalk Scrambles and other high school competitions. One of the prizes was Avid editing software, which Ken said helped him learn “how to put a movie together.” Becky credited Sidewalk as “a huge influence” on Daniel.

Born in Birmingham, Scheinert attended Oak Mountain Elementary and Middle Schools before going to high school in Shades Valley. His parents, Ken and Becky, now live in Guntersville. His dad said Scheinert got into filmmaking through local competitions and musical theater during high school.

“But the film bug, it was 20 percent just me doing what my brother did, because he and his friends were all making movies for fun, and they had a public access TV show that they only made like two episodes of, but I loved it,” Scheinert told AL.com last year. “And Sidewalk Film Festival just blew my mind when I made a movie in high school with my best friends and it played for an audience and they liked it. I was like, ‘This is incredible.’ So we just started trying to make movies and do all the Sidewalk Scrambles and enter all the competitions. I interned at Sidewalk Film Festival for a while, and it became my favorite thing to do my last three years of high school.”

Scheinert said Sidewalk Film Festival is “still my favorite film festival,” so he attends anytime he can. “I always tell other filmmakers that it’s the right size of a film festival where you can walk to all the theaters, and it’s just one fun weekend. A lot of film festivals are like two weeks, and it’s all spread out.”

Cook emphasized the educational component of Sidewalk’s outreach, noting the annual festival marks culmination of the organization’s work year-round, which allows high school students from across the Birmingham metro area to come together to learn about the filmmaking process.

Various programs engage local filmmakers as short-term mentors as they introduce and focus on different elements of the filmmaking process. The students will create short films that screen at Sidewalk, while some are submitted to other festivals. They stress media literacy for young artists and also offer educational opportunities for adults via workshops, panels and other events.

“People in the local community can learn about it, take that interest in their creativity and do something with it,” Cook said. “I think Daniel as a young student involved with live theater and short films is the epitome of what we want to see. There’s so much value in offering that sort of thing in a community that isn’t known for this industry, making the possibility of it feel real and tangible. That part is one of the more gratifying things that we do for our staff that is so fun to foster that, see where people take it. This is the ultimate version of that.”

The team at Sidewalk will be watching it all unfold this Sunday, as Scheinert and his “Everything Everywhere All at Once” family (including fellow nominee and the film’s editor Paul Rogers, a Birmingham native) hit the red carper and potentially win multiple Oscars.

Each year, Sidewalk hosts an Oscar party, a free event at the Film Center + Cinema where they screen the live red carpet broadcast along with the award ceremony in their lobby and in the theaters. It kicks off at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, and fans can fill out an Oscar ballot to enter a contest where winner gets a membership to the cinema. They’ll also have drink specials and giveaways. (Learn more here.)

“This year is extra special because we have the hometown connection to the show,” Cook said, comparing Scheinert’s run to “American Idol” winner Ruben Studdard, who often wore jerseys with Birmingham’s area code “205″ on the front, as his hometown rallied around his success. “People in the local community lost their minds. It was a new show, but it was also, ‘Look there’s one of us getting all this positive attention.’

“That’s the vibe for this Sunday’s Oscar broadcast. Our staff, the volunteers, everybody attached to Sidewalk is particularly amped to watch the show and cheer on the hometown team,” Cook said. “We’re really excited.”

Above all, Cook and Sidewalk want to credit Scheinert for his success, seeking no claim to responsibility beyond what they provided as an organization.

“This is his ascent. We’re thrilled. Thrilled is an understatement,” Cook said. “It was incredibly thoughtful and kind for him to acknowledge us in any way.”

Cook was touched by Scheinert coming home a few years ago to direct his film “The Death of Dick Long,” when she said she first met him in person. She said he expressed the importance of bringing the filmmaking process home to showcase talent from the area and the resources that existed here.

“Not everybody is like that,” she said. “There are a lot of people who obtain a level of success and no matter where they’re from … they like to distance themselves from that place. So it was very touching that that was important to him, and it wasn’t just lip-service.

“That’s the sort of thing that communities need when they want to see a particular industry develop,” Cook said. “It’s not enough to have incentives. You also have to have people who are really dedicated to their craft, who are going to put everything they have into the work and try to attain the level of success the rest of the world values so they can do the things they value. I really feel like he’s a great example of that. He’s not just a guy from here who makes cool things and gets acknowledgement for it. He’s a guy from here who makes cool things and then tries to bring some of that back home, and I think that’s really special. And it’s a credit to him and to his parents for raising him right.”