The 23rd annual Nantucket Film Festival celebrated a wide spectrum of films and drew more than a few Hollywood heavyweights over the weekend. The Best…
The 23rd annual Nantucket Film Festival celebrated a wide spectrum of films and drew more than a few Hollywood heavyweights over the weekend.
The Best Narrative Feature went to “Burden,’’ directed by Andrew Heckler and starring Garrett Hedlund, Forest Whitaker, and Usher Raymond IV, which tells the true story of a man trying to break ties from the Klu Klux Klan for the sake of his family.
Meanwhile, the Dava Whisenant -directed “Bathtubs Over Broadway’’ took home the Best Documentary Feature award. The quirky doc follows “Late Night with David Letterman’’ writer (and Harvard grad) Steve Young ’s strange journey into the world of “industrial musicals,’’ Broadway-level productions put on by giant corporations solely for their respective salesforces.
Finally, Irene Taylor Brodsky ’s “Homeless: The Soundtrack,’’ a film about singer-songwriter Jenni Alpert ’s search for her biological father, won Best Short Feature.
Meanwhile, the Mr. Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’’ and “Juliet, Naked,’’ the Ethan Hawke -starring film based on Nick Hornby ’s novel, were named the weekend’s Best of Fest winners.
The NFF also announced the winners of Showtime Tony Cox Screenplay Competition, which spotlights screenplays and television pilots that have yet to be produced. The top prize went to Henry Hayes and Zolan Kanno-Youngs for “Cambridge,’’ which tells the life of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev through the friends who knew him before he became the infamous Boston Bomber.
The accolades don’t stop there: writer-director Noah Baumbach (“The Meyerowitz Stories,’’ “Frances Ha,’’ “The Squid and the Whale’’) was honored at the Screenwriting Tribute Awards on Saturday night. The event was co-hosted by Ben Stiller and actor/comedian Mike Birbiglia, and Baumbach accepted the award from frequent collaborator Adam Driver.
Morgan Neville also accepted the Special Achievement in Documentary Storytelling Award for “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,’’ which was presented by Dr. François Clemmons, better known to “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’’ fans as Officer Clemmons.
