5th Annual Key West Film Festival Now Playing
Burt Reynolds in Person Tonight!
Legendary Actor Burt Reynolds and Costume Designer Mary Zophres to Receive Career Achievement Awards
Critics Focus Program Features Closing Night Film “Manchester by the Sea”
The 5th Annual Key West Film Festival is now playing through Sunday, Novmeber 20, featuring a Career Achievement Award for Burt Reynolds who ill appear in person at a special screening of The Bandit tonight.
David Fear, Senior Film/TV Editor of Rolling Stone, has curated Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea, part of the Critics Focus program, to be the closing night film of the Festival.
For a full schedule of films and events, visit: http://kwfilmfest.com/festival-tickets/
Main Events
This year, the Key West Film Festival will present the inaugural Costume Design Focus honoring Academy Award®-nominated costume designer Mary Zophres with a Career Achievement Award. The Golden Key Award for Career Achievement will be presented to legendary 70s superstar Burt Reynolds. The fifth edition of the festival also features the second annual Brett Ratner Florida Student Filmmaker Scholarship, a $7500 scholarship awarded to two Florida student filmmakers chosen from six participating Florida colleges and universities.
The Festival’s Critics Focus program, now enhanced with the juried Critics’ Prize, together with the new Costume Design Focus, marks the Key West Film Festival as a vital stop on the awards season fall festival circuit, with programs designed to support film criticism and craft while giving audiences greater context and perspective of films through public conversations guided by expert voices.
The Key West Film Festival aspires to highlight the work of accomplished Floridian artists such as Mary Zophres, of Ft. Lauderdale, Brett Ratner, a Miami Beach native, and Burt Reynolds, who is a resident of Jupiter.
The festival will take place in Key West from November 16 to 20, and includes special event screenings and a curated selection of over 25 feature films encompassing narrative features, costume design, documentaries, foreign language cinema, LGBT cinema and works by Florida filmmakers.
The complete line-up is as follows:
Tribute to Burt Reynolds
The Bandit by Jesse Moss, 2016
In person: Burt Reynolds and David Fear, Chief Film Critic for Rolling Stone
Costume Design Focus
Hail, Caesar! by Joel and Ethan Coen, 2016
In person: Academy Award-nominated costume designer Mary Zophres
La La Land by Damien Chazelle, 2016
In person: Academy Award-nominated costume designer Mary Zophres and Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Costume Designer and Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences
PorchChat
Key West Film Festival visiting critics convene to discuss and debate this year’s slate of films in advance of choosing the first annual Key West Film Festival Critics’ Prize.
In Person: Amy Nicholson, Chief Film Critic for MTV News; David Fear, Chief Film Critic for Rolling Stone; Eric Kohn, Chief Film Critic of Indiewire, Steve Dollar, film critic for The Wall Street Journal, Brian Brooks, journalist at Deadline.com and co-producer of SeriesFest, and Juan Barquin, film critic for Miami New-Times
Critics Focus
20th Century Women by Mike Mills, 2016, Opening Night
In person: Amy Nicholson, Chief Film Critic for MTV News; David Fear, Chief Film Critic for Rolling Stone
Manchester by the Sea by Kenneth Lonergan, 2016, Closing Night
In person: Amy Nicholson, Chief Film Critic for MTV News; David Fear, Chief Film Critic for Rolling Stone
Narrative Features
After Adderall by Stephan Elliott, 2016
In person: Writer/Director Stephen Elliott and author Jerry Stahl
Blood Stripe by Remy Auberjonois, 2016
The Daughter by Simon Stone, 2016
Folk Hero and Funny Guy by Jeff Grace, 2016
In person: Director Jeff Grace
Live Cargo by Logan Sandler, 2016
In person: Director Logan Sandler and actor Robert Wisdom
Youth in Oregon by Joel David Moore, 2016
Documentary Features
Contemporary Color by Bill Ross and Turner Ross, 2016
Don’t Blink: Robert Frank by Laura Israel, 2016
The Islands and the Whales by Mike Day, 2016
Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent by Lydia Tenaglia, 2015
The Last Laugh by Ferne Pearlstein, 2016
The Rolling Stones Olé, Olé, Olé!: A Trip Across Latin America by Paul Dugdale, 2016
A Song for You: The Austin City Limits Story by Keith Maitland, 2016
Sour Grapes by Reuben Atlas and Jerry Rothwell, 2016
Key West Spotlight
3 by Lou Simon, 2016
Funeral Days by Jon Weinberg, 2016
Love and Hostages by Javier Mayol, 2016
Papa by Shane Eason, 2016
Welcome to This House by Barbara Hammer, 2015
World Cinema
Lamb by Yared Zeleke, 2016
Kalebagiak by Daniel Calparsoro, Iñaki Camacho, Borja Cobeaga, María Elorza, Maider Férnandez, Isabel Herguera, Ekain Irigoien, Julio Medem, Gracia Querejeta and Luiso Berdejo, 2016. Curated by the San Sebastian Film Festival.
Neruda by Pablo Larraín, 2016
One Week and a Day by Asaph Polonsky, 2016
Paris, Love, Cut by Arnaud Viard, 2016
One Key West: LGBT
King Cobra by Justin Kelly, 2016
Lovesong by So-yong Kim, 2016
Miles by Nathan Adloff, 2016
Slash by Clay Liford, 2016
Strike a Pose by Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan, 2016
In person: film subjects Salim Gauwloos and Jose Gutierez
Short Films
Florida Short Film Showcase, A selection of short films directed and produced by Florida filmmakers
2016 Sundance Short Films, A selection of short films from this year’s Sundance Film Festival
In partnership with the San Sebastian Film Festival, the curated selection of Kalebagiak was also announced today. The omnibus film, to be presented at this year’s Key West Film Festival, is directed by Daniel Calparsoro, Iñaki Camacho, Borja Cobeaga, María Elorza, Maider Férnandez, Isabel Herguera, Ekain Irigoien, Julio Medem, Gracia Querejeta and Luiso Berdejo.
Critics Focus
Now in its second successful year, the 2016 Key West Film Festival’s Critics Focus program will be led by David Fear, Senior Film/TV Editor of Rolling Stone and Amy Nicholson, Chief Film Critic of MTV.
This year’s Critics Focus program also features attending film critics and journalists including Eric Kohn, Chief Film Critic of Indiewire, who serves on the festival’s advisory board, Steve Dollar, film critic, journalist and freelance contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Bright Ideas magazine, Filmmaker and other publications, Hans Morgenstern, film critic for Miami New-Times, Eugene Hernandez, Deputy Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Co-Publisher of Film Comment, Brian Brooks, co-producer of Special Events of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, journalist at Deadline.com and co-producer of SeriesFest, and Juan Barquin, film critic for Miami New-Times.
Attending critics at this year’s festival will serve as the jury for the first annual Key West Film Festival Critics’ Prize.
Costume Design Focus
The 2016 Key West Film Festival presents the first annual Costume Design Focus program, honoring Academy Award®-nominated costume designer Mary Zophres. Widely known for her indelible work with Joel and Ethan Coen and beyond, Zophres has contributed to shaping the worlds and characters of some of the great films of our time, including The Big Lebowski, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, True Grit, La La Land, Hail, Caesar!, Catch Me If You Can and Interstellar with her artistry in the field of costume design. The Festival will present Zophres with a career achievement award to be accompanied by special screenings of director Damien Chazelle’s La La Land and the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! to showcase Zophres’ work in 2016. The award will be presented by Dr. Deborah Nadoolman Landis, a Costume Design Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Her distinguished costume career includes, National Lampoon’s Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Three Amigos, Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Coming to America, for which she received an Academy Award® nomination.
Tribute to Burt Reynolds
This year, the festival will honor Burt Reynolds with the Golden Key Career Achievement Award, accompanied by a special screening of the documentary The Bandit, about the 70s superstar, his best friend and stunt-double Hal Needham, and the making of their unlikely smash-hit Smokey & The Bandit.
Brett Ratner Florida Film Scholarship
The Key West Film Festival’s Brett Ratner Florida Film Scholarship continues in its second year, with a $7500 scholarship awarded to two Florida student filmmakers, chosen from six participating Florida colleges and universities. Born and raised in Miami Beach, Ratner is one of Florida’s most cherished filmmakers, and personally presented the award last year to the winning student at a special ceremony at the Festival. The scholarship is designed to put a spotlight on aspiring Florida filmmakers, giving their unique local vision and heritage a national stage.
Key West Film Festival Venues
Festival venues include the historic San Carlos Institute, where the campaign for Cuba’s independence from colonial powers was planned in 1892. The Key West Film Festival has equipped the San Carlos with DCP technology, and it will host gala screenings. Other screening venues include the Key West Theater, the Studios of Key West and additional venues to be named later. Host venues for social events include the Truman House, the Waldorf Astoria Casa Marina and the Southernmost Mansion.
Visit kwfilmfest.com for full program information, a schedule of events and travel and lodging details.
About the Key West Film Festival
Creativity, diversity, sustainability and beauty. The Key West Film Festival is an annual celebration of film and filmmakers, set to take place November 16-20, 2016.
A diverse, entertaining and artistically rigorous selection of films will be represented through a broad array of categories that offer opportunities for filmmakers, both aspiring and established, to commune and exchange ideas with each other while showing their work to audiences in an historic and artistically vibrant tropical paradise.
