"The Disappearance Of Shere Hite" Wins Adrienne Shelly Foundation Excellence in Filmmaking
By Mark Johnson
June 27, 2023
Nantucket, MA (June 27, 2023) – The 28th annual Nantucket Film Festival presented by Bank of America today announced the audience winners for this year’s festival. MY SAILOR, MY LOVE, directed by Klaus Härö, and written by Jimmy Karlsson and Kirsi Vikman, won the Narrative Feature Audience Award. Morgan Neville and Jeff Malmberg’s THE SAINT OF SECOND CHANCES and Robert Schwartzman’s HUNG UP ON A DREAM tied for the Documentary Feature Audience Award. STARVING, directed by Bobby Louise and Brig, written by Micah Cohen and Matthew Mullen, about the mental health impact of the increasing isolation we all feel as our lives speed up, was the recipient of the Narrative Short Film Audience Award. Laura Cunningham’s THE OTTISONS: A TRUE NANTUCKET STORY, in which the beloved Nantuckers paint a picture of their family history through the lens of their unique property on the Creeks, was the recipient of the Documentary Short Film Audience Award. PIANOFORTE, directed by Jakub Piatek, and A LITTLE PRAYER, written and directed by Angus MacLachlan, were among NFF’s Best of Fest selections granted special repeat screenings due to popular demand.
NFF also announced the winners of the prestigious Tony Cox Screenplay Competition, which recognizes the best unproduced screenplays and television pilots submitted to the Festival by emerging writers. Greg Scharpf received the top prize as the winner of the Feature Screenplay Competition for SMOKE AS DIRECTED. The Episodic 60 Minute Screenplay Competition nod went to Jenny Goddard-Garcia for THE CURRENT, the 30 Minute Episodic Screenplay Competition was won by Morgan Milender for WICKED BAYOU, and the Short Screenplay Competition winner was FAVORS by Agnes Skonare Karlsson.
Greg Scharpf’s SMOKE AS DIRECTED is based on a true story set in the ‘70s about neurotic DC
speechwriter Robert Randall, who accidentally discovers that marijuana reverses the blinding effects of his glaucoma. Alongside many interesting characters, Robert fights the DEA and FDA to become America’s first medical marijuana patient and to enact the first statewide marijuana law, igniting a controversial national debate. Scharpf receives a $2,500 cash prize, VIP access to this year’s Festival, a custom bound copy of his script, and an all-inclusive month-long writer’s retreat on Nantucket with longtime NFF partner Almanack Screenwriters in October.
In THE CURRENT, by Jenny Goddard-Garcia, the script follows steadfast sisters Meri and Spring, who were taught to fear those outside their secluded community and have avoided the brainwashing signal, the Current, overtaking all of humanity. After their mother’s death, they align with a scrappy resistance group, the Switches, to locate an insidious inventor, their father, who holds the key to protecting their home and stopping the Current forever. Goddard-Garcia receives a $1,000 cash prize, VlP access to this year’s Festival, and a custom bound copy of her script.
In Morgan Milender’s WICKED BAYOU, sisters June and Maris find themselves banished to an off-the-grid swamp community with their parents as members of the Witness Protection Program after a viral TikTok accidentally outs their dad as a former Boston mobster. Milender receives a $1000 cash prize, a custom bound copy of their script, and VIP access to this year’s Festival.
Agnes Skonare Karlsson’s FAVORS is about a stressed traveler who claims she’s been asked to watch a stranger’s baby in a packed train station. For fifteen sweaty minutes, she’s got one goal: to get rid of the baby. Skonare Karlsson receives a $500 cash prize, a custom bound copy of their script, and VIP access to this year’s Festival.
The Film Screenplay Competition jury was composed of Sophie Barthes, writer and director of THE POD GENERATION; Christian Blauvelt, executive managing editor at IndieWire; and Michael Yuchen Lei, NFF 2022 Tony Cox Feature Screenplay winner and the writer and director of REFRAME, screening within the Festival’s short film program.
The Episodic Screenplay Competition jury was composed of Joey Clift, whose writing credits including Netflix’s SPIRIT RANGERS, Cartoon Network’s NEW LOONEY TUNES, and PBS’s MOLLY OF DENALI; executive producer Opus Moreschi, working previously on The Colbert Report and The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in various roles, including on-screen as “McGnaw the Gluten-Free Beaver;” and vice president of television for Likely Story Miriam Mintz, whose credits include the second season of Amazon’s MODERN LOVE and Netflix’s LIVING WITH YOURSELF.
The Festival also announced the winner of the Adrienne Shelly Foundation Excellence in Filmmaking
Award, a $5,000 grant recognizing the achievement of a female filmmaker, and named in honor of the late actor and director. This year’s award went to filmmaker Nicole Newnham for her film THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE, part of NFF’s documentary feature lineup this year.
NFF awarded a $5,000 grant for the inaugural Maria Mitchell Visionary Award to filmmaker Sophie
Barthes for her film THE POD GENERATION, which screened as an Opening Day Film at this year’s festival. The award is named after the Nantucket native who was the first woman inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is given to a female filmmaker who stretches innovative boundaries.
The Teen View Jury Award went to writer and director Jerah Milligan and writers James III, Jonathan
Braylock, and James Carr for MAHOGANY DRIVE.
“As a festival focused on screenwriting, it is a privilege to be able to honor the talented and hardworking writers and filmmakers who are the center of the industry, and have made this year’s edition so special,” said Mystelle Brabbée, Executive Director of the Nantucket Film Festival, and Anita Raswant, Lead Programmer of the Nantucket Film Festival. “We would like to take a moment to congratulate all our honorees, award winners, and filmmakers and thank them for allowing us to highlight their dynamic, diverse, and enlightening films and scripts. None of this would be possible without our distinguished jury members, filmmakers, audience members, staff, sponsors, volunteers, and, most of all, the writers. Thank you to everyone for making this yet another wonderful festival.”
Brian Williams hosted the Screenwriters Tribute from the ‘Sconset Casino on Saturday, June 24th.
Oscar®-nominated screenwriter and director Nicole Holofcener accepted the Screenwriters Tribute Award (YOU HURT MY FEELINGS, ENOUGH SAID, FRIENDS WITH MONEY, WALKING AND TALKING) presented by her YOU HURT MY FEELINGS actor Michaela Watkins. While at this year’s festival, Holofcener screened her film YOU HURT MY FEELINGS and participated in NFF’s signature program WOMEN BEHIND THE WORDS along with Allison Williams and Michaela Watkins.
Oscar®-nominated filmmaker Ken Burns (THE ROOSEVELTS: AN INTIMATE HISTORY, THE NATIONAL
PARKS: AMERICA’S BEST IDEA, THE CIVIL WAR, THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST, HEMINGWAY, THE
VIETNAM WAR, PROHIBITION, THE WAR, JAZZ, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, BASEBALL) and his producing and directing partner and Emmy®-Award winning filmmaker Lynn Novick (COLLEGE BEHIND BARS, THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST, HEMINGWAY, THE VIETNAM WAR, PROHIBITION, THE WAR, JAZZ, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, BASEBALL) received an award for Special Achievement in Documentary Storytelling, presented by Dyjuan Tatro, who was featured in COLLEGE BEHIND BARS. At this year’s festival, Novick also participated in A DEEP DIVE WITH FILMMAKER LYNN NOVICK, sharing clips and insights into how and why these films were made, followed by a conversation with Dyjuan Tatro.
Actor Lola Tung presented the New Voices in Television Writing Award to New York Times best-selling author Jenny Han (THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY, TO ALL THE BOYS I LOVED BEFORE, XO, KITTY). Han also participated in a book signing, meet and greet, and conversation with Lola Tung, who stars in the television adaptation of her book THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY.
Special guests who attended NFF 2023 included Allison Williams, Joan Baez, Ruth Riechl, Brian Williams, Nicole Holofcener, Jenny Han, David Strathairn, Lola Tung, Graham Greene, Lynn Novick, Donick Cary, Michaela Watkins, Alexander Dreymon and more.
