Best director Bigelow. SIFFgoers called it early and correctly.Two of the biggest winners at the Academy Awards last night were embraced early by viewers at the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival. With six Oscars,The Hurt Locker was the belle of the ball. Kathryn Bigelow famously became the first woman ever to win the Best Director prize. Last year, she visited SIFF and sat down with us to discuss her film, which opened in local theaters in July. In the SIFF awards, filmgoers voted her best director–nicely handicapping the Oscars. SIFF voters also picked the eventual Oscar-winning documentary, The Cove, whose director, Louie Psihoyos, also visited SIFF and granted us a long, passionate interview about dolphins being slaughtered in Japan.Not a winner last night was the Oscar-nominated short documentary The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner, about the latter’s battle with Parkinson’s disease and advocacy of assisted suicide. Co-produced by Seattle native Andy Schocken, the film unfortunately wasn’t included among the package of Oscar-nominated shorts (features and animation only) currently playing the Varsity. The film will be shown on HBO later this year; and it’s also a strong bet to play at SIFF this spring. (The festival runs May 20-June 13.)