The Nantucket Film Festival

The island of Nantucket is a beautiful setting for a film fest. And while the Nantucket Film Festival, which just wrapped its second year, still has some organizational kinks to work out (note to fest organizers: think about holding readings and panel discussions in a tent with a p.a.), the fest staff worked hard this year to present a festival for both fans and filmmakers that boasted a unique hook -- the fest focuses on the screenwriting, and therefore the films are chosen for the quality of their scripts, not for first-look, breakout potential.

The fest is a nice change from the hell of over-crowding and poor screening conditions, or chaotic disorganization of other bigger fests. The lineup was a solid list of this year's indie veterans (Hugo Pool, Colin Fitz, Star Maps, Sunday), some newer fare (Insomnia, The Tit and the Moon), a program of professionally cast screenplay readings and a series of documentary shorts from the recently defunct MSNBC series, Edgewise. Morning coffees featured intimate conversations in a local coffee house with discussions between fest board member Jace Alexander and folks like directors Greg Mottola (The Daytrippers), Peter Cohn (Drunks) and Robert Bella (Colin Fitz); producers Maggie Renzi (Lone Star, Matewan) and Sarah Green (American Buffalo, Passion Fish) and entertainment attorney Harris Tulchin.

The readings, however, underscored why this festival is first and foremost about the screenwriters. Most of the films had been touring the festivals this year and last, and while some still want and deserve distribution, many were reaching the end of their run at festivals. But Nantucket also featured five professionally cast readings of unproduced screenplays like Warren Leight's (The Night We Never Met) Love-40, and Pete Nelson's Peace, Love & War, performed with actors such as John Shea, Callie Thorne, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Chris Noth, and Mary McCormack.

One of the two overlooked festival vets that I saw during the week was Colin Fitz, written by Tom Morrissey and directed and produced by Robert Bella. An odd and cleverly written look at the cult of personality surrounding dead rock stars and a relationship between two very different, but equally inept security guards (Matt McGrath and Andy Fowle), the film brings strange but welcome turns by veteran actors William H. Macy, Martha Plimpton and John C. McGinley that help make it definitely deserving of a second look by distributors.

On the other hand, Dorne Pentes' The Closest Thing to Heaven really needs a first look. The film paints a picture of Charlotte, North Carolina that none but a native could imagine. Dubbed by Bob Hawk a "Charlotte Short Cuts," the film melds five stories of the denizens of this Southern city, and holds them together with both overlapping characters and a wonderful white-suited narrator who pedals from scene to scene on his bicycle giving a loving and often irreverent tour of the city. The film has won awards at various festivals, including Atlanta Film and Video, New Orleans, North Carolina and San Jose Cinequest. Not playing many "industry" fests after its screenings at the 1996 IFFM unfairly hurt its initial chances at domestic distribution.

A third program of note at the festival was the series of Edgewise documentary shorts exec produced by R.J. Cutler (A Perfect Candidate). An excellent opportunity for documentary filmmakers, Edgewise showed their work to a television audience wider than is often the case with theatrically distributed docs, and they had the chance to work with Cutler, a veteran of several successful films. The selections chosen for the fest were by and large well made and informative, with special notice given to: "Hellhouse," a piece focusing on a fundamentalist Christian "house of horrors," designed to scare people into leading so-called pious lifestyles by demonstrating the evils of homosexuality and abortions; "Smoking," a segment wherein nicotine addicted teenagers speak frankly about their love of cigarettes, and "Self Deliverance", a debate about doctor-assisted suicide in the Northern Territory of Australia.

The national press coverage of the fest wasn't as high as it should be, and there was a notable lack of premieres and therefore, acquisition execs, but I don't think that this festival is trying to be another Sundance. I wasn't at this fests kick off in 1996, but if '97 is any example, it'll be around for quite some time.

Florida Film Festival by Michael Jones
Nantucket Film Festival by Mark Rabinowitz