IndependentFilm.com

May 26, 2011 (New York, NY) – Having already announced its full film lineup, the Nantucket Film Festival (NFF) brings a few more surprises to the table, announcing the participants in its annual All-Star Comedy Roundtable presented by Ben Stiller, who will be on hand for the event.  This year’s event will be hosted by Seth Meyers (Saturday Night Live), who comes fresh off his gig as the host of this year’s White House Correspondent’s Dinner and a record-breaking SNL finale. Also participating is breakout comedy sensation Aziz Ansari (Parks and Recreation and the upcoming film 30 Minutes or Less), with more special guests to be announced. Individual tickets for the festival are available starting May 26 at www.nantucketfilmfestival.org.

 

“The All-Star Comedy Roundtable is the latest in a series of special signature programs the festival has the honor of hosting,” Artistic Director Mystelle Brabbée said. She continued, “Certainly having Seth Meyers as a host is quite a privilege itself after his shellacking of Donald Trump.” Executive Director Colin Stanfield added, “With yet another sterling lineup, we’re expecting to pack the house for our third year running.”

 

Another returning favorite is Late Night Storytelling, to be co-hosted this year by Glee’s Mike O’Malley and festival legend Anne Meara. Participants include five surprise guests as well as audience members. Past storytellers include Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey, Tina Fey, Mos Def, Rosie Perez, Cheryl Hines, Laird Hamilton, Olympia Dukakis, Paul Rudd, Alan Cumming, Fisher Stevens, and Brian Williams.

 

Previously announced as this year’s Compass Rose Acting Award recipient is Academy Award® nominee Vera Farmiga, who’s directorial debut Higher Ground will be closing the fest. Presenting the award to her are Higher Ground co-star Joshua Leonard (who brings his directorial effort The Lie to NFF) and TIME Senior Writer Richard Corliss.  Also announced as this year’s annual Screenwriting Tributee will be Academy Award winner Paul Haggis (Crash). The festival is also bringing back the New Voices in Screenwriting award, to be presented to Cars 2 scribe Ben Queen by Chris Orr, Senior Editor at The Atlantic.

 

In keeping with NFF’s mission of spotlighting writers, the Festival is proud to announce the jurors for Showtime’s annual Tony Cox Award for Screenwriting. Members of this year’s jury include Susan Wloszczyna (film reporter, USA Today), Dana Harris (editor-in-chief, indieWIRE), and Rajendra Roy (Celeste Bartos chief curator of film, Museum of Modern Art). The winner will be feted at the Showtime Award Ceremony at the Festival.

 

Among other awards given at NFF® this year will be The Audience Award for Best Feature & Best Short, Showtime’s Tony Cox Awards for Best Screenwriting in a Feature Film and Short Film, Teen View on NFF® Award, Best Storytelling in a Documentary Film, and the Adrienne Shelly Excellence in Filmmaking Award.

 

Other special events include Morning Coffee With…®, which draws sell-out crowds annually. The daily panels take place every morning and invite attendees to join filmmaker experts for an intimate mix of coffee, conversation, bagels and shoptalk with some of their favorite filmmakers. Also featured will be In Their Shoes…®, an in-depth conversation providing a rare insight into the life and work of a legend working in the film industry.

 

Opening the festival is Cars 2, from the beloved family franchise.  This new adventure, directed by John Lasseter, follows Lightning McQueen and his best friend Mater as they race around the globe and unwittingly find themselves caught up in international espionage.

 

NFF’s second opening night film is the Sundance Film Festival award winner Buck, a documentary on the life of famed horse trainer Buck Brannaman. Closing the festival this year will be Vera Farmiga’s directorial debut Higher Ground, in which she also stars, from Sony Pictures Classics. Roadside Attractions’ upcoming Margin Call, starring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, and Paul Bettany, will be featured as the festival’s Centerpiece Film.

 

Special guests who attended NFF 2010 included Academy Award winners Barry Levinson, Michael Arndt, Davis Guggenheim; Emmy Award winners Ben Stiller, Andy Samberg, Sarah Silverman; Academy Award nominees Elisabeth Shue and Steven Haft; Emmy Award nominee Stephanie Davis; Grammy Award winner Fiona Apple; Zach Galifianakis, Jonathan Ames, Brian Williams, Chris Matthews, Casey Neistat, Joana Vicente, Richard Corliss, Jess Cagle, Cody Gifford, and many more.

 

NFF was founded in 1996 to spotlight screenwriters, screenwriting and storytelling in today's cinema. The festival takes place the third week of June on the idyllic island of Nantucket, MA. Now in its sixteenth year, NFF has become a prestigious annual event within the international film industry. The festival is a significant attraction that draws over ten thousand attendees, screenwriters, producers, agents and development executives each year.

 

The Nantucket Film Festival is proud to welcome back long standing sponsors American Airlines, Showtime, Stella Artois, Cape Air, Inquirer and Mirror, The White Elephant, Brand Content, The Beachside, Hertz, and Harborview, returning sponsors Tissot and Nespresso, as well as our new sponsors BMW, The Atlantic, and Grey Goose.

  

The 2011 Nantucket Film Festival will take place June 22-26.  Passes are currently available with individual tickets on sale May 26.  For more information please visit our website at www.nantucketfilmfestival.org.

 

The films of the 2011 Nantucket Film Festival:

 

BEING ELMO: A PUPPEETER’S JOURNEY

Director: Constance Marks (co-director: Philip Shane)

Beloved by children of all ages around the world, Elmo is an international icon. Few people know his creator, Kevin Clash, who dreamed of working with his idol, master puppeteer Jim Henson. Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey offers a behind-the-scenes look at Sesame Street and the Jim Henson Workshop. Winner of the Special Jury Prize, U.S. Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival.

 

BENAVIDES BORN

Writer/Director: Amy Wendel

Welcome to Benavides, Texas, where petite girls can deadlift 280 pounds, military recruiters roam high school halls, and a patriotic Mexican-American community that has been there since before it was Texas struggles with an economy literally collapsing around it. Luz Garcia wants out, and powerlifting is her ticket. It's all or nothing for her... until nothing stares her in the face.

 

BEYOND THE ROADWriter/Director: Charly BraunSantiago, a 30-year-old Argentinean, travels to Uruguay searching for a piece of land inherited from his parents who were tragically killed in an accident a few years earlier. On his arrival in Montevideo he meets Juliette, a young Belgian searching for an old love. He offers her a ride, and on the way they develop a relationship of growing affect. When they arrive in Punta del Este, however, the glamorous universe of the seaside town stands between them. BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD

Director: Liz Garbus

Using the narrative tension of the 1972 match between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer, this documentary explores the nature of genius, madness, and the game of chess itself. Bobby Fischer Against the World tells the stranger-than-fiction story of the rise and fall of an American icon. 

 

BUCK (OPENING NIGHT FILM)

Director: Cindy Meehl

Buck, a richly textured and visually stunning film, follows Buck Brannaman from his abusive childhood to his phenomenally successful approach to horses. A real life "horse-whisperer", he eschews the violence of his upbringing and teaches people to communicate with horses through leadership and sensitivity, not punishment. Buck possesses near magical abilities as he dramatically transforms horses - and people - with his understanding, compassion and respect. In this film, the animal-human relationship becomes a metaphor for facing the daily challenges of life. A truly American story about an unsung hero, Buck is about an ordinary man who has made an extraordinary life despite tremendous odds.

 

CARS 2 (OPENING NIGHT FILM)

Director: John Lassetter

Star racecar Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) and the incomparable tow truck Mater (voice of Larry the Cable Guy) take their friendship to exciting new places in Cars 2 when they head overseas to compete in the first-ever World Grand Prix to determine the world’s fastest car.  But the road to the championship is filled with plenty of potholes, detours and hilarious surprises when Mater gets caught up in an intriguing adventure of his own: international espionage.  Mater finds himself torn between assisting Lightning McQueen in the high-profile race and towing the line in a top-secret mission orchestrated by master British super spy Finn McMissile (voice of Michael Caine) and the stunning rookie field spy Holley Shiftwell (voice of Emily Mortimer).  Materʼs action-packed journey leads him on an explosive chase through the streets of Japan and Europe, trailed by his friends and watched by the whole world.  The fast-paced fun includes a colorful new all-car cast, complete with menacing villains and international racing competitors.

 

CIRCUMSTANCE

Director: Maryam Keshavarz

A tale of love and family upended by obsession and suspicion, Circumstance is also a provocative coming-of-age story that cracks open the hidden world of Iranian youth culture. The film explores a modern Iran rarely seen by outsiders, an exhilarating, invisible realm of illicit parties where young hipsters risk arrest, and their futures. In this world, two vivacious teenage girls take risks every day to lead their own lives.

 

CONNECTED

Writer/Director: Tiffany Shlain

An exhilarating stream-of-consciousness ride through the interconnectedness of humankind, nature, progress, and morality at the dawn of the 21st century. With insight, curiosity, and humor, the film weaves both a personal and global story about interdependence. For centuries people have been declaring independence; this film asks if perhaps it’s time to declare interdependence instead.

 

DONOR UNKNOWN

Director: Jerry Rothwell

JoEllen has always known her family ‘wasn't like other families'. She grew up in Pennsylvania with two mothers, and a burning curiosity to know more about her anonymous sperm donor father she only knows as Donor 150. When she discovers an online registry that connects donor-conceived children, she manages to track down over 12 half-siblings across the USA.

 

FIVE DAYS GONEWriter/Director: Anna Kerrigan After her father passes away, Camden discovers she has an illegitimate half sister: Alice. The two couldn't be more different; but Camden is confident that the two of them are destined to be great friends. Alice on the other hand, is not quite convinced. In an effort to bond, the sisters and their significant others take a trip to Lionshead, the family estate in Massachusetts where tensions build and ultimately explode. GRANITO

Writer/Director: Pamela Yates

The five main characters whose destinies collide in Granito are connected by the war-torn Guatemala of 1982, when a genocidal campaign by the military exterminated nearly 200,000 Maya people. The five sift for clues buried in archives and historical memory, and become integral to the overarching narrative of wrongs done and justice sought pieced together by each of them adding their granito, their tiny grain of sand, to the epic tale.

 

HAPPY, HAPPY

Director: Anne Sewitsky

Kaja is an eternal optimist in spite of living with a man who would rather go hunting and refuses to have sex with her because she "isn't particularly attractive" anymore. But when "the perfect couple" moves in next door, Kaja struggles to keep her emotions in check. These new neighbors open a new world with consequences for everyone involved. Winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

 

HIGHER GROUND (CLOSING NIGHT FILM)

Director: Vera Farmiga 

Starring and directed by Vera Farmiga, the film follows one woman’s spiritual journey as she joins a small fundamentalist community where she finds meaning and stability. But some of its more conservative tenets leave her unsettled, driving her into a profound crisis of faith that turns her world upside down.  

 

HOT COFFEE 

Director: Susan Saladoff

Stella Liebeck’s personal legal battle over a spilled McDonald’s cup of coffee serves as a springboard into understanding the American civil system. Since Stella’s fateful day, big business has brewed a dangerous concoction of manipulation, distortions and outright lies to protect corporate interest. Hot Coffee show our audience that many of their long-held beliefs about our civil justice system have been paid for by corporate America.

 

THE LAST RITES OF JOE MAYWriter/Director: Joe MaggioFeaturing a powerful performance by Dennis Farina and the full impact of Chicago’s urban landscape, The Last Rites of Joe May chronicles the final days of an aging short-money hustler who has always believed that a glorious destiny awaits him around every corner. Now in his sixties, his health failing and resources dwindling, May is presented with one last shot at greatness when a single mother suggests they share the apartment.  LIFE IN A DAY

Director: Kevin Macdonald 

Producers of Life in a Day enlisted the global community to capture a moment of their lives on camera on a single day and the world responded by submitting more than 80,000 videos, creating a unique experience that shows, in beautiful, humorous, and joyful honesty, what it’s like to be alive on earth today. 

 

THE LIE

Writer/Director: Joshua Leonard

A candid portrait of a young idealist couple forced to settle down after the birth of their baby. Drowning in an unfulfilling job, Lonnie decides he needs some time off and calls in sick. When his abusive boss demands he shows up or get fired, Lonnie tells a shocking lie to justify his absence – and once the lie is out, there is no going back. 

 

MARGIN CALL (CENTERPIECE FILM)

Writer/Director: J.C. Chandor

This tense Wall Street thriller follows the staff of a high-powered brokerage firm in the 24 hours before the stock market crash of 2008. Featuring an all-star cast, Margin Call was one of the most talked about films of the Sundance Film Festival and was also the Opening Night selection of New Directors/New Films.

 

MIA AND THE MIGOO 

Writer/Director: Jacques-Rémy Girard 

Mia sets out on a journey to search for her father, who has been trapped in a landslide at a construction site on a remote tropical lake. In the middle of the lake stands the ancient Tree of Life, watched over the Migoo. It is the Migoo who have been disrupting the construction to protect this sacred site. Created from 500,000 gorgeous hand-painted frames of animation, Mia and the Migoo is a breathtaking work of art.

 

MOZART’S SISTER

Writer/Director: René Féret 

A delightful period drama, Mozart’s Sister paints a detailed portrait of the traveling players and a speculative account of Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart teenage years from 1759 to 1762. A musical prodigy in her own right, Nannerl has given way to Wolfgang as the main attraction, as their strict but loving father Leopold tours his talented offspring in front of the royal courts of pre-French revolution Europe.

 THE NAMES OF LOVE 

Writer/Director: Michel Leclerc 

An intelligent and charming romantic comedy about two very different people and the dysfunctional families they hail from. A beautiful young free spirit, Baya is so passionate about progressive causes that she uses the force of her sexual appeal to convert misguided right-wing men to her political positions. So far she has achieved exceptional results until she meets an uptight middle aged, middle-of-the road scientist.

 NANTUCKET BY NATURE

Director: Kit Noble

Featuring never-before-seen images of grace and beauty, Nantucket by Nature provides an extraordinary four-season glimpse of the splendors of the Island. Supported by a stirring and poignant score recorded by local musicians, the film is a remarkable chronicle of the Island in all its grace and glory.

 

ON THE ICE

Director: Andrew Okpeaha MacLean

On the snow-covered Arctic tundra, at the top of the world in Barrow, Alaska, two teenagers try to get away with murder. The boys stumble through guilt-fueled days, avoiding the suspicions of their community as they weave a web of deceit. With their future in the balance, they are forced to explore the limits of friendship and honor. Winner of the Crystal Bear for Best Film in the Generations Section and Best First Feature Award at the Berlin Film Festival.

 

ONE LUCKY ELEPHANT

Writer/Director: Lisa Leeman

When Flora the elephant loses her zest for performing, Circus Flora’s producer, David Balding, goes on a journey of mammoth proportions to find her a new home, revealing the unintended consequences of raising a wild animal in captivity. Caught between the human and animal world, Flora epitomizes the harsh reality elephants face in our expanding man-made world. 

 

THE OTHER F WORDDirector: Andrea Blaugrund NevinsFeaturing a large chorus of punk rock's leading men -- Mark Hoppus of Blink-182, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tim McIlrath of Rise Against -- this wise and insightful portrayal of fatherhood explores what happens when a generation's ultimate anti-authority figures become society's ultimate authorities. PAGE ONE: A YEAR INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES

Writer/Director: Andrew Rossi

With the Internet surpassing print as our main news source, newspapers going bankrupt, and outlets focusing on content they claim audiences (or is it advertisers?) want, Page One chronicles the media industry’s transformation and assesses the high stakes for democracy if in-depth investigative reporting becomes extinct.

 

POINT BLANKWriter/Director: Fred CavayéA riveting thriller, Point Blank follows Samuel as he races against time to save his delicate pregnant wife. A nurse-in-training at a hospital, Samuel spots someone threatening a patient. He goes by the book and confronts the intruder, saves the wounded man, and reports the incident to the authorities. But Samuel’s world is turned upside down when the dangerous criminal behind the attempted murder kidnaps Samuel’s wife. Paris provides a magnificent backdrop to the action as Samuel dodges rival gangsters and trigger-happy police to save the lives of his wife and unborn child. SENNA                                                                               

Director: Asif Kapadia

With a cinematic approach that makes full use of astounding footage, Senna follows the racing legend’s remarkable story, charting his physical and spiritual achievements on the track and off, his quest for perfection, and the mythical status he has since attained. The documentary spans his years as an F1 driver, from his opening season in 1984 to his untimely death a decade later.  

 

SUBMARINE

Writer/Director: Richard Ayoade

Based on Joe Dunthorne's acclaimed novel, Submarine is a captivating coming-of-age story with an offbeat edge. One boy must fight to save his mother from the advances of a mystic and simultaneously lure his eczema- strafed girlfriend in to the bedroom armed with only a wide vocabulary and near-total self-belief. His name is Oliver Tate.

 

TERRI

Director: Azazel Jacobs

A moving and often funny film about the relationship between Terri, an oversized teen misfit and the garrulous but well-meaning vice principal, who reaches out to him, Terri is a film about the courage it takes to build relationships and the rewards of taking that sometimes terrifying leap.

 

TO BE HEARDDirectors: Edwin Martinez, Amy Sultan, Deborah Shaffer, Roland Legiardi-LauraIntimately shot over four years, To Be Heard is the story of three teens from the South Bronx whose struggle to change their lives begins when they start to write poetry. As writing and reciting become vehicles for their expressions of love, friendship, frustration, and hope, they emerge as accomplished self-aware artists, who use their creativity to alter their circumstances.  TYRANNOSAUR 

Writer/Director: Paddy Considine 

The film follows the story of Hannah and Joseph, two lonely, damaged people brought together by circumstance. When the pair is brought together, Hannah appears as Joseph’s potential savior, but as the story develops and events spiral out of control, Joseph becomes her source of support and comfort.

 

UNRAVELED

Director: Marc H. Simon

Days before Bernie Madoff made headlines with his billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, respected Manhattan attorney Marc Dreier was arrested for orchestrating his own massive hedge fund fraud. Confined to his Upper East Side penthouse, Dreier allows Simon inside as he counts down the final days before his sentencing. An irresistible glimpse into the mind of a consummate trickster, Unraveled is a fascinating study of deception and downfall. 

 

WE STILL LIVE HERE: ÂS NUTAYUNEÂN

Director: Anne Makepeace

Celebrated every Thanksgiving as “the Indians” who saved the Pilgrims, then largely forgotten, the Wampanoag of Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, spurred on by their intrepid Wampanoag linguist and MacArthur honoree Jessie Little Doe Baird, are saying loud and clear, in their Native tongue, “Âs Nutayuneân,” – “We still live here.”

 

WHEN THE DRUM IS BEATING

Director: Whitney Dow

A rhythmic meeting of music and history, When the Drum Is Beating brilliantly interweaves the stories of Haiti and its most celebrated band, Septentrional. With its distinctive fusion of Cuban big band rhythms and Haitian vodou beats, the 20-piece band has been around for more than six decades.

 

 

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