Festival to open with Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen crowd-pleasing romantic comedy ETERNITY and close with Oscar Best Picture frontrunner HAMNET, starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley.

Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix Winner, SENTIMENTAL VALUE, to serve as Centerpiece Film

Special work in-progress screening of film about celebrated local artist, Eric Anfinson

The 14th Annual Key West Film Festival kicks off on November 12, 2025, led by the Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen feel good film ETERNITY, which has been wowing audiences since its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year. Closing the festival will be the current frontrunner for Best Picture, HAMNET, starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley and directed by Academy Award winner Chloe Zhao (Nomadland). Serving as the Centerpiece Film is another of the leading films for Best Picture, Joachim Trier’s Cannes Grand Prix Winner SENTIMENTAL VALUE, which has also been gathering momentum for a Best Actress nomination for Renate Reinsve. As is tradition at the festival, leading critics from across the country will be on hand to present and discuss these and other films in the lineup. This year’s visiting critics include Bilge Ebiri of Vulture.com, Addie Morfoot of Variety, and David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter.

As previously announced, Golden Key Award honorees this year include renowned stage, screen and television star Billy Connolly, who will be honored alongside a 20th Anniversary screening of the burst your seams laughing film THE ARISTOCRATS, and Academy Award-winning Costume Designer Deborah L. Scott, appearing at the festival prior to the release of her latest work, AVATAR 3. This is the 10th annual award for Costume Design – the only such annual award given the to form in the world – and past honorees include multiple Academy Award winners and nominees.

The foreign language category this year boasts many of the top contenders for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Feature, including Paolo Sorrentino’s LA GRAZIA which premiered at Venice, Hlynur Pálmason’s THE LOVE THAT REMAINS, Iceland’s official selection for the Oscar, and Kleber Mendonça Filho’s THE SECRET AGENT from Brazil, which is also being mentioned as a contender for Best Picture. Korea’s official selection, NO OTHER CHOICE, from Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Decision to Leave) rounds out the award heavy section. KWFF previously showcased Filho’s Bacurao in 2021, as well as Sorrentino’s The Hand Of God, which took home the Golden Conch for Best International film at the 2022 edition of the Festival.

Leading the Documentary section is the Documentary Spotlight title CANCELLED: THE PAULA DEEN STORY, the latest film from Miami-based director Billy Corben. Corben will appear at the festival for a Q&A, as he has for four of his previous films. Celebrity chef Paul Menta, a frequent collaborator of Deen’s, will host a special cooking class prior to the screenings (featuring a LOT of butter, of course). Also appearing at the festival is Emmy Award-Winning director Ondi Timoner, with both her latest feature, ALL GOD’S CHILDREN and her new short film which just premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, ALL THE WALLS CAME DOWN. The Miami born director returns to the festival after previously winning awards for Last Flight Home in 2022 and Mapplethorpe in 2018, making her the only filmmaker to win Golden Conch awards in two different categories at the festival. Other titles include Academy Award-Nominee Robert Stone’s latest film, STARMAN, about pioneering NASA engineer Gentry Lee and

LEGENDARY COMEDIAN AND PERFORMER BILLY CONNOLLY TO RECEIVE GOLDEN KEY AWARD FOR ARTISTIC EXCELLENCE TIED TO 20TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENING OF “THE ARISTOCRATS.”  

TENTH ANNUAL GOLDEN KEY FOR COSTUME DESIGN HONORS AWARD-WINNING COSTUME DESIGNER DEBORAH L. SCOTT

2025 FESTIVAL RUNS NOVEMBER 12th -16th  

The Key West Film Festival announced today the recipients of its Golden Key Award For Artistic Excellence, honoring legendary comedian and performer Billy Connolly. The festival also celebrates its tenth annual Golden Key Award for Excellence in Costume Design, honoring Academy Award-winning costume designer Deborah L. Scott.

Mr. Connolly will be in attendance at the festival to coincide with a screening to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of The Aristocrats, the groundbreaking film about the dirtiest joke ever told, in which Connolly is featured.

As part of the Golden Key Award for Excellence in Costume Design honor, Scott will participate in a discussion of her work, to be moderated by Addie Morfoot of Variety. Ms. Scott will accept her award in person at the festival, which will feature a pre-recorded presentation by Oscar nominated Costume Designer, Dr. Deborah Nadoolman Landis. 

Sir William Connolly (born 24 November 1942) is a Scottish actor, musician, television presenter, artist and retired stand-up comedian. He is sometimes known by the Scots nickname the Big Yin ("the Big One"). Known for his idiosyncratic and often improvised observational comedy, frequently including strong language, Connolly has topped many UK polls as the greatest stand-up comedian of all time. In 2017, he was knighted at Buckingham Palace for services to entertainment and charity. In 2022, he received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

As an actor, Connolly has appeared in various films, including Water (1985), Indecent Proposal (1993), Pocahontas (1995), Muppet Treasure Island (1996), Mrs. Brown (1997) (for which he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role), The Boondock Saints (1999), The Last Samurai (2003), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), The Aristocrats (2005), The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008), Brave (2012), What We Did On Our Holiday (2014), The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014).

Deborah L. Scott is an award-winning costume designer known for her outstanding design, intuitive looks, and trailblazing techniques that elevate each and every character she costumes. Scott’s latest work can be seen in the highly anticipated Avatar: Fire and Ash, set for release on December 19, 2025. She reunites with James Cameron for this third installment, helping to further expand the vibrant, immersive world of Pandora. For this chapter, Scott and her team are once again pushing the boundaries of costume design, spending years developing intricate textiles, beadwork and embroidery, and fusing traditional handcraft with cutting-edge digital innovations. The result continues to bring the Na’vi to life with a richly detailed culture inspired by indigenous craft traditions and realized through thousands of bespoke costume pieces and props.

Her previous work includes&nbs

They Shot The Piano Player

Reposted by Robin Menken

Bossa Nova is making a comeback-filmically.First there was Roberto de Oliveira’s “Elis and Tom”, a documentary from remastered footage of a legendary recording session in LA in 1974: then Dandara Ferreira & Lô Politi bio pic about Gal Costa "Meu Nome e Gal"- a look at Gal Costa's career as part of Tropicalia's political resistance to the violence of Brazil's new dictatorship; and now Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal's Animated docu-mystery “They Shot the Piano Player”.

This rich musical mosaic cum thriller is sheer catnip for cool cat and kitty jazz lovers.

Jeff Goldblum voices the main character Jeff Harris, whose fascination with an obscure Bossa Nova pianist, who went missing while on tour in Argentina with Vinicius de Moraes, takes over his book on Bossa Nova.

Moraes- Brazilian poet, diplomat (he served as Brazilian Vice-Consul in LA in the 40's) lyricist, musician, singer, and playwright co-wrote Black Orpheus, the play and film. Moraes is one of many luminaries of Brazilian music from Bossa Nova Jazz through Troplicalia and MPB, who appear in the film.

Goldblum's Jeff Harris is essentially Fernando Trueba's alter ego. A noted Jazz pianist, Goldblum brings a sensitive swinging style to his narration.

Discovering an out of print jazz record called O LP, on which Tenorio played, Trueba, like Harris in the film, became fascinated with Francisco Tenorio Jr., the actual Brazilian pianist who tragically went missing in 1976. A musician's musician, Tenorio recorded one record as a band leader in March 1964,  when he was 23 years old- "Embalo".(It's available as a Mr. Bongo re-issued CD). There is a gorgeous sequence of the "Embalo" recording session in the film.

Trueba conducted years of interviews with musicians and friends of Francisco Tenorio Jr. In South America and the U.S. without a specific project in mind. That archive of fascinating interviews became the basis of "They Shot The Piano Player."

Javier Mariscal, one of Trueba's co-directors on their previous animated feature "Chico & Rita", brought a looser more caricatural style to this project. The bright palette and more abstracted character design is reminiscent of jazz-tinged modernist animation classics from UPA's Postwar "Atomic Era" Studio style which influenced animation at Warners, Disney et al.

Trueba and Mariscal adopted UPA's limited animation style, inviting their adult audience to fill in the blanks. The fictional framing story of Jeff Harris is handled in a more detailed realistic animation style. The flashbacks described by a host of famous musicians and family friends are expressionistic, adopting UPA's bright color blocks to create jazzy emotional sequences.

Apolitical Tenorio was 'disappeared' by the Argentine government, suspected of being a Communist because he had long hair and a musician's union card, tortured and shot in the head in the notorious Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA), in Buenos Aires.

The film also exposes the CIA-approved Operation Condor, where Military dictatorships across South America cooperated in disappearing other countries' suspected exiled leftists.

Among many other figures, Ella Fitzgerald and interviewees Stan Getz, Bud Shank, Joáo Gilberto, Paulo Moura, João Donato, Tom Jobim, Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento, Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Toquinho and Vinicius de Moráes appear in the film. Seductive bossa nova tunes pepper the soundtrack.

Havana-based fictional romance “Chico and Rita” was an homage to latin jazz by Trueba, a hard core music buff and sometime producer. It featured appearances by Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk and Cuban master conga player Chano Pozo.
Sony Classics is distributing the entrancing "They Shot T

 In its 20th edition, Forum Expanded brings together 24 works from 21 countries. Employing practices that span installation, film, video and sculpture, the selected artists and filmmakers employ translucence as a means of engaging with the cataclysmic realities of the present. Whether dealing with personal or collective histories, ongoing wars, extractivism, legacies of colonialism or social inequalities, their approaches frequently hinge on intervention rather than observation. Be it through tinted glass, virtual reality, historical speculation or sonic augmentation: their works actively project ideas, images and sounds that alter how we perceive reality and refract our view of the world. They make what is missing even more tangible by redirecting our gaze and throw what lies beyond or outside of our perception into ever sharper relief as a result.

Neda Saeedi’s Sinking Suns illuminates silent green’s Betonhalle, the venue for the Forum Expanded exhibition, with fragile, mesmerising lightscapes created using tinted glass objects and overhead projectors. A foreboding beauty emanates from these ephemeral sculptures, which act as portals to another space and simultaneously remind us that sunsets are at their most spectacular when the air is most polluted.

Other installations in the exhibition similarly draw on and interrogate methods of visual displacement, such as Alisa Berger’s dual-channel video and VR installation RAPTURE, in which the protagonist is transported to his childhood home, a place which he can now only access virtually. Ginan Seidl’s 3-channel video installation J-N-N explores the invisible presence of ghostly Jinns in past and present-day Iraq. While on the lawn outside of the venue, the visitor’s own smartphones provide the lenses through which they can experience the augmented reality installation Alternatives Denkmal für Deutschland (ADfD) (Alternative Monument for Germany), a community-based virtual monument to migration in Germany.

At silent green’s Kuppelhalle, a special presentation of Lisa Jackson’s 360-degree dome projection film Wilfred Buck’s Star Stories provides an immersive view of Indigenous astronomy. Ininew astronomer Wilfred Buck shares four stories from Cree cosmology. A video installation at the Embassy of Canada’s Marshall McLuhan Salon expands on this work and provides further insights into Buck’s research and thinking. The project is presented in partnership with the Canadian Embassy in Berlin and with the kind support of Indigenous Screen Office and Canada Media Fund.

The gaze towards the sky into the stars is also present in this year’s film programme: Riar Rizaldi’s film Mirage: Eigenstate uses the template of Carl Sagan’s classic American TV show Cosmos to decentre the dominance of Western science and explore other ways of interpreting reality, such as through tropical Sufi mysticism.

Kevin Jerome Everson and his crews in three locations across North America directed their Super 8 and 16mm cameras straight at the sun to document a solar eclipse across three North American time zones in When the Sun is Eaten (Chi’bal K’iin).

In Pidikwe (Rumble), Caroline Monnet speculates on an alternative cultural history, one in which Indigenous contributions to art and culture are recognised and celebrated. Her performative short film posits dance as a system of knowledge and a healing tool rooted in community.

Stéphanie Lagarde’s Extra Life (and Decay) imagines communal action across generations, classes, genders and even species. Positing hospitality as a survival tool to fight morbid politics of isolation, this multi-layered short film draws a line between the invention of nuclear families an

Ice 3, Review: Russian film festival’s six-pack of ice

While Mumbaikars were still mulling to dig into their winter-wardrobe, the Russian Film Festival laid out the white carpet, with huge sheets of ice several kilometres long, for the film was set in the freezing north. Mumbai’s winter would make us blush when compared to North Russia, where the temperatures can be much lower 0 degrees Celsius. This was of course, with solid reason. The fifth of their six-film package, Ice 3, was set in an area where the primary sport for women is figure skating on a deep layered ice-rink. The name gave away the theme, but the suffix 3 aroused curiosity. Search engines lead you to then discovery that the film is a continuation of the stories Ice (2018) and Ice 2 (2020), its predecessors. All three films had different directors breaking the ice. I have not seen its predecessors, but Ice 3, the final part, is a welcome addition to the franchise. An emotional seesaw, set against the figure skating championships, it will bring a lump to your throat, on many an occasion, and have your heart beating as fast as the skaters pirouetting on screen.

In this part, which can stand alone for a viewer who has not seen the previous two outings, we see the coming-of-age story of Nadia, the daughter of Alexander Gorin, as she navigates key moments, in her life leading up to her 18th birthday. After her father suffers a career-ending injury, Nadia refuses to give up on her dreams of becoming a figure skating champion. Despite her father’s prohibition against training, due to the substantial injuries she has suffered in early training, she secretly trains with Sergei Orlov, an ice hockey player who has been transferred to this remote club, who helps her prepare for a prestigious award her mother once desired.

Initially at odds, Alexander eventually approves of Nadia and Sergei's relationship after recognising Sergei’s serious intentions. Although she is supposed to be training with another trainer, Tamara Bezhanova, who was then training her protegée Albina, who was tipped to win the championship. Tamara gave very little attention to Nadia, but she found a soul-mate in Sergei. Secretly, Irina gives tips to Sergei from her hospital bed, which he passes on the Nadia, as his own tips. Irina was Nadia’s coach, till she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, but miraculously survived. With this ‘feedback’, she is able to clear all the hurdles in the championship and beats Albina.

As many as four writers have worked on the script, and they do not include the director: Andrey Zolotarev (major contribution), Aksinya Borisova, Aleksandr Andryushchenko, Oleg Malovichko. That can cause some complications, but the director, Yuri Khmelnitsky has blended their inputs so well that the whole films unravels at a continuous screenplay. Shot mostly on Lake Baikal, a rift lake that is the deepest lake in the world. The Lake is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Republic of Buryatia to the southeast. Ice 3 was shot at a time when the ice is crystal clear and there are no humans within a kilometer radius.

Very cleverly, the director has kept the back story to minimum and there is only a token apparition of Nadia’s mother in the hospital, where she is presumed dead, by Nadia’s mother tells her that her time has not come yet. The way in which the romance develops between Nadia and Sergei is an example of the control the director has on such importan

Saturday night Key West Film Festival celebrated our filmmakers and special guests in a joyful Awards Ceremony at The Studios of Key West. Thanks to Matt Hauser for hosting the evening, and congratulations to the KWFF 2024 Golden Key and Golden Conch Award Winners! 

GOLDEN KEY AWARDS

Excellence in Costume Design - Danny Glicker

Emerging Talent - Delaney Buffett

GOLDEN CONCH AWARDS

Best Narrative Film
THE FIRE INSIDE - Rachel Morrison

KWFF Critics Award
FLOW - Gints Zilbalodis

KWFF Critics Award (Special Mention)
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT - Payal Kapadia

Best Documentary Feature
MEN OF WAR - Billy Corben and Jen Gatien

Best LGBTQ Feature
A NICE INDIAN BOY - Roshan Sethi

Best Florida Feature
MUD KEY - Coley Sohn

Best Foreign Language Feature
FLOW - Gints Zilbalodis

Best Dramatic Short Film
HARLEM FRAGMENTS - Cameron Tyler Carr (Produced by Salma Qarnain)

Best Comedy Short Film
ENDZGIVING - Tina Carbone

Best Documentary Short Film
NOT ROD - Becca Greene and Alex Pollack

Best Florida Short Film 
EL REGGAETONERO - Eddy Moon

Kimberly Peirce Scholarship for Student Filmmakers (presented by the King Family Foundation)

Best World Student Filmmaker Short Film
SPECIAL DELIVERY - Emily Everhard

Best Florida Student Filmmaker Short Film
Y TU QUE HAS HECHO - Paolo Cesti

ABOUT THE KEY WEST FILM FESTIVAL
Honoring creativity, diversity, sustainability and beauty, The Key West Film Festival is an annual celebration of film and filmmakers set to take place November 13-17, 2024. 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 while showing their work to audiences in an historic and artistically vibrant tropical paradise.  

For more information, visit our website: https://keywestff.com
Follow and tag us at : @keywestfilmfest #kwff2024  

Riding the wave of being named to both MovieMaker Magazine’s esteemed “Top 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” and “Top 20 Destination Film Festivals in the World,” The Key West Film Festival has assembled a revered group of industry leaders and artists to judge the 13th edition of the festival, which is set for November 13-17 in the Sunshine State. The collective includes Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves writer Michael Gilio, Hell’s Kitchen Producer Eric Rudnick, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit actor Mouzam Makkar,  Chicago Fire Former Co-Producer Daniele Bernstein, Straight Outta Compton producer Bill Straus, and Late Night with Seth Meyers Associate Producer Amanda Cowper. The jury will also be led by Florida industry leaders and award-winning filmmakers from across the country.

Awards include Best Comedy Short Film, Best Dramatic Short Film,  Best Documentary Short Film, and Best Florida Short Film. Two student filmmakers will receive the Kimberly Peirce Student Filmmaker Scholarship presented by the Diana King Foundation. Winners will be announced during the Key West Film Festival Awards Ceremony on Saturday, November 16th.

Florida industry leaders on the jury include Key West and Florida Keys Film Commissioner Chad Newman, Miami filmmakers Flor Portieri and Sasha Levinson, Executive Director of the Florida Keys Council of the Arts Elizabeth Young, University of Miami’s Margaret Cardillo, University of Central Florida’s Tim Ritter and Mark Schimmel, and Key West Filmmaker John Cunningham.

Rounding out the jury are award-winning director and former Sundance Film Festival Programming Associate April Wright, Omeleto Head of Programming Kat Ascharya, Australian arts advocate Augusta Supple, Second City and AMAW Los Angeles veteran Sommer Austin, Comedian Erick Esteban, and Dallas Film Commissioner Tony Armer. 

Screening Venues for this edition of KWFF include: Williams Hall, The Perry Hotel and Marina, and The Regal Key West.

Visit https://keywestff.com for full program information.

ABOUT THE KEY WEST FILM FESTIVAL

Honoring creativity, diversity, sustainability and beauty, The Key West Film Festival is an annual celebration of film and filmmakers set to take place November 13-17, 2024. 

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 while showing their work to audiences in an historic and artistically vibrant tropical paradise.  

For more information, visit our website: Read more