The Nantucket Film Festival is a film festival

Film festival

A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

 founded in 1996 to promote the cultural awareness and appreciation of the art of screenwriting in the world of cinema. Nantucket Film Festival screens a world-class program of independent, studio-produced, foreign, documentary, and short films in every genre, including many theatrical premieres. Approximately 20 feature films and 15–25 short films are selected annually every June with an eye for great screenwriting and storytelling. Board Members include Ben Stiller

Ben Stiller

Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller is an American comedian, actor, writer, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara....

 and Brian Williams

Brian Williams

Brian Douglas Williams is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, the evening news program of the NBC television network, a position he assumed in 2004...

.

Celebrating its 15th Anniversary this year (June 17–20), the NFF has become one of the premiere destination film festivals in the world, located in beautiful Nantucket . Visitors come from all over to experience our preview screenings, signature events, and stand out hospitality on a magical island, rich with history, a friendly atmosphere, and beautiful sandy beaches.

History

The Nantucket Film Festival was founded by brother and sister team Jill Burkhart and Jonathan Burkhart. The Burkharts lived on the island year round, and with their love of movies and the community, they knew it was the perfect place to begin a film festival. From its inception, the festival's mission has been to celebrate screenwriters and explore screenwriting in the complex world of filmmaking. In 1997, Mystelle Brabbêe joined the team and today NFF continues to thrive, always remaining true to its mission.

The Nantucket Film Festival Screenwriters Tribute

The NFF Screenwriters Tribute is a celebration of a noted screenwriter who has brought distinction to the craft of writing for film. This red carpet event is hosted by Brian Williams

Brian Williams

Brian Douglas Williams is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, the evening news program of the NBC television network, a position he assumed in 2004...

, NFF Board member and NBC News anchor, who shows off his flair for humor. Past honorees include: Walter Bernstein

Walter Bernstein

Walter Bernstein is an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s.-Early life:...

, Charlie Kaufman

Charlie Kaufman

Charles Stuart "Charlie" Kaufman is an American screenwriter, producer, and director. His film work includes Being John Malkovich, Human Nature, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, New York...

, Ring Lardner Jr.

Ring Lardner Jr.

Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner, Jr. was an American journalist and screenwriter blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:...

, Steve Martin

Steve Martin

Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....

, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, CBE is a Booker prize-winning novelist, short story writer, and two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter. She is perhaps best known for her long collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of director James Ivory and the late producer Ismail Merchant...

, Jay Presson Allen

Jay Presson Allen

Jay Presson Allen was an American screenwriter, playwright, stage director, television producer and novelist. Known for her withering wit and sometimes-off-color wisecracks, she was one of the few women making a living as a screenwriter at a time when women were a rarity in the profession...

, James Schamus

James Schamus

James Schamus is an award-winning screenwriter The Ice Storm and producer Brokeback Mountain, and is CEO of Focus Features, the motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company whose films have included Lost in Translation, Milk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The...

, Paul Schrader

Paul Schrader

Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and former film critic. Apart from his credentials as a director, Schrader is most notably known for his screenplays for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Raging Bull....

, Alexander Payne

Alexander Payne

Alexander Payne, born Alexander Constantine Papadopoulos is an American film director and screenwriter. His films are noted for their dark humor and satirical depictions of contemporary American society.- Early life :...

, Jim Taylor

Jim Taylor (writer)

Jim Taylor is an American producer and screenwriter, best known as the writing partner of Alexander Payne. They are credited as co-writers of six films released between 1996 and 2007:Citizen Ruth ,...

, Judd Apatow

Judd Apatow

Judd Apatow is an American film producer, director, and screenwriter. He is well known for his work in comedy films, especially for films he has been involved with throughout the latter half of the 2000s. He is the founder of Apatow Productions, a film production company that also developed the...

 and Harold Ramis

Harold Ramis

Harold Allen Ramis is an American actor, director, and writer, specializing in comedy. His best-known film acting roles are as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters and Russell Ziskey in Stripes , both of which he also co-wrote...

 . The 15th Anniversary edition of the 2010 Screenwriters Tribute honorees are Barry Levinson

Barry Levinson

Barry Levinson is an American screenwriter, film director, actor, and producer of film and television. His films include Good Morning, Vietnam, Sleepers and Rain Man.-Early life:...

, Michael Arndt

Michael Arndt

Michael Arndt is an American screenwriter.After graduating from New York University, Arndt was a script reader for some time before choosing to write screenplays instead...

 and Davis Guggenheim

Davis Guggenheim

Philip Davis Guggenheim is an Academy Award-winning American film director and producer. His credits as a producer and director include Training Day, The Shield, Alias, 24, NYPD Blue, ER, Deadwood, and Party of Five and the documentaries An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for 'Superman...

.

Late Night Storytelling

Keeping the ancient tradition of storytelling alive, Six storytellers tell their tales without the benefit of notes or scripts. Writers, actors, filmmakers and Nantucketers tell stories both awe-inspiring and amusing. Past storytellers include; Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey

James Eugene "Jim" Carrey is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He has received two Golden Globe Awards and has also been nominated on four occasions. Carrey began comedy in 1979, performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, Ontario...

, Jerry Stiller

Jerry Stiller

Gerald Isaac "Jerry" Stiller is an American comedian and actor.He spent many years in the comedy team Stiller and Meara with his wife Anne Meara...

, Tina Fey

Tina Fey

Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer, known for her work on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live , the NBC comedy series 30 Rock, and films such as Mean Girls and Baby Mama .Fey first broke into comedy as a featured player in the...

, Laird Hamilton

Laird Hamilton

Laird Hamilton is an American big-wave surfer, co-inventor of tow-in surfing, and an occasional fashion and action-sports model. He is married to Gabrielle Reece, a professional volleyball player, television personality, and model...

, Jesse L Martin, Brian Williams

Brian Williams

Brian Douglas Williams is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, the evening news program of the NBC television network, a position he assumed in 2004...

, Joe Pantoliano

Joe Pantoliano

Joseph Peter "Joe" Pantoliano is an American film and television actor. He played the character of Ralph Cifaretto on The Sopranos, Bob Keane in La Bamba, Cypher in The Matrix, Teddy in Memento, Francis Fratelli in The Goonies, Guido "the Killer Pimp" in Risky Business, and Jennifer Tilly's...

, Alan Cumming

Alan Cumming

Alan Cumming, OBE is a Scottish stage, television and film actor, singer, writer, director, producer and author. His roles have included the Emcee in Cabaret, Boris Grishenko in GoldenEye, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United, Mr. Elton in Emma, and Fegan Floop in the Spy Kids trilogy...

, Mos Def

Mos Def

Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...

, Olympia Dukakis

Olympia Dukakis

Olympia Dukakis is an American actress. In 1987, she won an Academy Award, BAFTA, and a Golden Globe for her performance in Moonstruck...

, Ted Hope

Ted Hope

Ted Hope is an American independent film producer based in New York City.As the American Indie wave hit in the early 90’s, Ted was among the first producers to emerge from the pack, and today remains one of the few consistently delivering vital and exciting new work...

, Paul Rudd

Paul Rudd

Paul Stephen Rudd is an American actor and screenwriter. He has primarily appeared in comedies, and is known for his roles in the films Clueless, Wet Hot American Summer, Anchorman, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Dinner for Schmucks, The Object of My...

, Celia Weston

Celia Weston

Celia Weston is an American actress of stage, film and television, and a character actress. Professionally, she may be best known for her role as Jolene Hunnicutt on Alice.-Life and career:...

, John Shea

John Shea

John Victor Shea III is an American actor and director who has starred on stage, television and in film. He is best known for his role as Lex Luthor in the 1990s TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and also starred in the short lived 1990s TV series WIOU as Hank Zaret...

, Kristen Johnson

Kristen Johnson

Kristen Lynn Johnson is a beauty queen who has represented Kentucky at both Miss USA and Miss Teen USA.-Miss Kentucky USA:Before Johnson returned to the USA pageant stage, she competed and won the title Miss Model of Kentucky....

, Peter Farrelly

Peter Farrelly

Peter John Farrelly is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and novelist. The Farrelly Brothers are mostly famous for directing and producing gross-out humor romantic comedy films such as, Dumb and Dumber, Me, Myself and Irene, There's Something About Mary and The Heartbreak...

, Bobby Farrelly

Bobby Farrelly

Robert Leo "Bobby" Farrelly, Jr. is an American film director, screenwriter and producer.-Life and career:Farrelly was born in Cumberland, Rhode Island, the son of Mariann, a nurse practitioner, and Robert Leo Farrelly, a doctor. He is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has been...

, Anne Meara

Anne Meara

Anne Meara is an American actress and comedian. She and Jerry Stiller were a prominent 1960s comedy team, appearing as Stiller and Meara, and are the parents of actor/comedian Ben and actress Amy Stiller.- Personal life :...

, Rosie Perez

Rosie Perez

Rosa María "Rosie" Pérez is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, director and community activist.- Early life :...

, and Ben Stiller

Ben Stiller

Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller is an American comedian, actor, writer, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara....

.

All-Star Comedy Roundtable

Presented by NFF board member Ben Stiller

Ben Stiller

Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller is an American comedian, actor, writer, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara....

, this annual roundtable is a high light of every NFF. The upcoming 2010 All-Star Comedy Roundtable with Ben Stiller

Ben Stiller

Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller is an American comedian, actor, writer, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara....

 includes special guest Zach Galifianakis

Zach Galifianakis

Zachary Knight "Zach" Galifianakis is an American stand-up comedian and actor known for his numerous film and television appearances including his own Comedy Central Presents special...

 (writer/comedian, The Hangover, TV’s Bored To Death) and Sarah Silverman

Sarah Silverman

Sarah Kate Silverman is a Jewish American comedian, writer, actress, singer and musician. Her satirical comedy addresses social taboos and controversial topics such as racism, sexism, and religion....

, among others. NFF Festival Executive Director Colin Stanfield  commented on the announcement saying in a press statement, “Year in and year out, Late Night Storytelling and the Screenwriters Tribute draw lines around the block and we can already tell that Ben’s Comedy event will be another Nantucket Film Festival classic. Ben, Zach and Sarah on the same stage? It’s going to be awesome!”

Nantucket Film Festival Awards

The NFF Official Juries announced in May and the NFF Official Awards are presented to recipients on the last day of the festival in June.
Awards are handed out for:

• AUDIENCE AWARD FOR BEST FEATURE FILM

Audience members can vote for the Best Feature and the Best Short after each screening.

• AUDIENCE AWARD FOR BEST SHORT FILM

Audience members can vote for the Best Feature and the Best Short after each screening.

• TEEN'S VIEW ON NANTUCKET FILM FESTIVAL AWARD FOR SHORT FILM

Teen-only jury honors their favorite short film.

• BEST STORYTELLING IN A DOCUMENTARY FILM

Inspired by 2004's Audience Award Winner, the documentary Girlhood, this award recognizes the craft of storytelling in documentary filmmaking.

• THE ADRIENNE SHELLY EXCELLENCE IN FILMMAKING AWARD

Nantucket Film Festival celebrates the legacy of Adrienne Shelly

Adrienne Shelly

Adrienne Shelly , was an American actress, director and screenwriter. Making her name in independent films such as 1989's The Unbelievable Truth and 1990's Trust, Shelly transitioned to a writing and directing career in subsequent years...

 by honoring outstanding achievement by a female filmmaker among the festival's features, documentaries and short films. Each year's winner is provided with transportation to and lodging at the festival, along with a $5,000 cash prize.

• SHOWTIME'S TONY COX AWARD FOR BEST SCREENWRITING IN A FEATURE FILM

Presented in honor of Tony Cox, former CEO of Showtime Networks, who passionately nurtured emerging talent.

• SHOWTIME'S TONY COX AWARD FOR BEST SCREENWRITING IN A SHORT FILM

Presented in honor of Tony Cox, former CEO of Showtime Networks, who passionately nurtured emerging talent.

• SHOWTIME'S TONY COX AWARD FOR SCREENWRITING: SCREENPLAY COMPETITION

Presented in honor of Tony Cox, former CEO of Showtime Networks, who passionately nurtured emerging talent

The Screenwriters Colony

The Screenwriters Colony is a month long, all-expense-paid retreat on the island of Nantucket. Writers are invited to workshop their feature screenplay projects with guidance from industry mentors. Participating writers live together in an atmosphere of secluded creativity at picturesque Almanack Farm, perched on the edge of Nantucket's cranberry bog conservation land. In addition to intensive one-on-one feedback sessions, writers and advisors enjoy a sociable colony experience over dinners and island outings.

• Past Screenplay Competition jurors include:
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman
    Philip Seymour Hoffman
    Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
    
    , Campbell Scott
    Campbell Scott
    Campbell Scott is an American actor, director, producer, and voice artist.-Life and career:Scott was born in New York City, the son of George C. Scott, an actor, director, and producer, and Colleen Dewhurst, a Canadian-born actress. He graduated from Lawrence University in 1983. His brother is...
    
    , Tom McCarthy
    Thomas McCarthy (actor)
    Thomas Joseph McCarthy is an American actor, writer, and film director who has appeared in several movies, including Meet the Parents and Good Night, and Good Luck, and television shows such as The Wire, Boston Public, Law & Order, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of Saint Maybe...
    
    , Diana Ossana
    Diana Ossana
    Diana Lynn Ossana is an American writer who has collaborated on writing screenplays, teleplays, and novels with author Larry McMurtry since they first worked together in 1992, on the semi-fictionalized biography Pretty Boy Floyd...
    
    , Bobby Farrelly
    Bobby Farrelly
    Robert Leo "Bobby" Farrelly, Jr. is an American film director, screenwriter and producer.-Life and career:Farrelly was born in Cumberland, Rhode Island, the son of Mariann, a nurse practitioner, and Robert Leo Farrelly, a doctor. He is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has been...
    
    , Peter Farrelly
    Peter Farrelly
    Peter John Farrelly is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and novelist. The Farrelly Brothers are mostly famous for directing and producing gross-out humor romantic comedy films such as, Dumb and Dumber, Me, Myself and Irene, There's Something About Mary and The Heartbreak...
    
    , Stanley Tucci
    Stanley Tucci
    Stanley Tucci is an American actor, writer, film producer and film director. He has been nominated for several notable film awards, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his performance in The Lovely Bones...
    
    , Rosie Perez
    Rosie Perez
    Rosa María "Rosie" Pérez is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, director and community activist.- Early life :...
    
    , Kit Carson
    Kit Carson
    Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson was an American frontiersman and Indian fighter. Carson left home in rural present-day Missouri at age 16 and became a Mountain man and trapper in the West. Carson explored the west to California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married...
    
    , Greg Mottola
    Greg Mottola
    Gregory J. "Greg" Mottola is an American filmmaker, screenwriter and television director. Mottola wrote and directed the 1996 independent film The Daytrippers, then concentrated for several years on directing in television for series such as Undeclared and Arrested Development...
    
    , Nancy Tenenbaum, Nancy Savoca
    Nancy Savoca
    Nancy Savoca is an American film screenwriter, director, and producer. Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, she is the daughter of Sicilian and Argentine immigrants Calogero Savoca and Maria Elvira Savoca...
    
    , Lee Daniels
    Lee Daniels
    Lee Louis Daniels is an American actor, film producer, and director. He produced Monster's Ball and directed the film Precious, which received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Director; the film won two of the awards.-Early years:Daniels was born on Christmas Eve, 1959, in...
    
    , Anthony Swofford
    Anthony Swofford
    Anthony Swofford is a writer and former United States Marine known for being the author of the book Jarhead, published in 2003, which is primarily based on his accounts of various situations encountered in the first Gulf War. This memoir was the basis of the 2005 movie of the same name, directed...
    
    , and Donna Giglotti.

• Screenwriter's Colony mentors and advisors include:
  • Campbell Scott
    Campbell Scott
    Campbell Scott is an American actor, director, producer, and voice artist.-Life and career:Scott was born in New York City, the son of George C. Scott, an actor, director, and producer, and Colleen Dewhurst, a Canadian-born actress. He graduated from Lawrence University in 1983. His brother is...
    
    , actor/director/screenwriter (Off the Map
    Off the Map
    Off the Map is a travelogue written by Hibikina Chickena and Kika Kat. It was originally a self-published zine and was later published and sold in both zine and book form by the CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective....
    
    , Big Night
    Big Night
    Scott and Tucci won the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best New Director. Tucci and Tropiano won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay...
    
    , Roger Dodger); Oren Moverman
    Oren Moverman
    Oren Moverman is an Israeli filmmaker, screenwriter, and former journalist based in New York City.Moverman was the screenwriter and associate producer of Jesus' Son, a 2000 Lion’s Gate/Alliance Release...
    
    , screenwriter (Jesus' Son
    Jesus' Son
    Jesus' Son is a 1999 film that was adapted from a collection of short stories of the same name by Denis Johnson. It stars Billy Crudup, Samantha Morton, Holly Hunter, Dennis Hopper, Denis Leary, Will Patton, John Ventimiglia, Michael Shannon and Jack Black...
    
    , I'm Not There
    I'm Not There
    I'm Not There is a 2007 biographical musical film directed by Todd Haynes, inspired by iconic American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Six actors depict different facets of Dylan's life and public persona: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw...
    
    , The Messenger
    The Messenger (2009 film)
    The Messenger is a 2009 war drama film starring Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Steve Buscemi, Jena Malone, and Samantha Morton. It is the directorial debut of Oren Moverman, who also wrote the screenplay with Alessandro Camon....
    
    ); Bingham Ray, founder October Films and former president of United Artists; L.M. Kit Carson, producer/screenwriter (Paris, Texas
    Paris, Texas
    Paris, Texas is a city located northeast of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex in Lamar County, Texas, in the United States. It is situated in Northeast Texas at the western edge of the Piney Woods. Physiographically, these regions are part of the West Gulf Coastal Plain. In 1900, 9,358 people lived...
    
    , Bottle Rocket
    Bottle Rocket
    Bottle Rocket is a 1996 comedy film directed by Wes Anderson. It was co-written by Anderson and Owen Wilson. As well as being Wes Anderson's directorial debut, Bottle Rocket was the debut feature for brothers Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson, who co-starred with James Caan and Robert Musgrave.The film...
    
    ); Coleman Hough, screenwriter (Soderbergh's Full Frontal
    Full Frontal
    Full Frontal may refer to:* Full Frontal , an Australian sketch comedy series which debuted in 1993* Full Frontal , a 2001 film by Kyle Schickner* Full Frontal , a 2002 film by Steven Soderbergh...
    
    , Bubble
    Bubble
    -Physical bubbles:* Liquid bubble, globule of one substance encased in another, usually air in a liquid* Soap bubble, a bubble formed by soapy water * Antibubble, a droplet of liquid surrounded by a thin film of gas-Arts and literature:...
    
    ); and Lawrence Inglee
    Lawrence Inglee
    Lawrence Inglee is an American film producer who serves as the President of Lightstream Pictures. Inglee has worked as a producer on a number of films, including The Messenger by director Oren Moverman and The Day After Tomorrow by director Roland Emmerich. CareerIn September 2008, Inglee became...
    
    , creative executive at Marc Gordon Pictures (Saving Private Ryan
    Saving Private Ryan
    Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American war film set during the invasion of Normandy in World War II. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Robert Rodat. The film is notable for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which depicts the Omaha Beach assault of June 6, 1944....
    
    , The Day After Tomorrow
    The Day After Tomorrow
    The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science-fiction disaster film that depicts the catastrophic effects of global warming in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling which leads to a new ice age. The film did well at the box office, grossing $542,771,772 internationally...
    
    ).

• Past Screenplay Award winners
  • 2009 Winner: "Future Weather " by Jenny Deller
  • 2008 Winner: "Anna Down East" by Fred M. Strype
  • 2007 Winner: "Peck" by Marc Arneson
  • 2006 Winner: "Cold Souls" by Sophie Barthes
  • 2005 Winner: "Mink" by Will Luers
  • 2004 Winner: "The Last Seder" by Jennifer Maisel
  • 2003 Winner: "Buried Above Ground" by Chase Palmer
  • 2002 Winner: "Down to the Bone" by Debra Granik

External links

• Nantucket Film Festival Official Site
• Nantucket Film Festival on Plum TV
• Nantucket Film Festival 2010