The coronavirus pandemic prompted some significant changes to this year’s ninth annual Key West Film Festival, but some of the innovative new measures will likely prove to be popular events even post-pandemic.
One such adaptation is the first-ever “boat-in” movie at Stock Island Marina Village on Saturday, Nov. 21. The film festival has turned social distancing requirements into a Key West original. The double-feature boat-in includes Gene Hackman in “Night Moves,” and “Cuba Reframed,” a local film about the Schooner Wolf’s peace mission to Cuba.
All films selected for the festival, which runs Nov. 18-22, will be shown at outdoor venues — including the Ernest Hemingway House and Museum, The Oldest House, and The Lawn at Perry Hotel – with socially-distant seating set up under the stars. Many films will feature livestream and pre-recorded Q&A with directors, writers and actors.
Playing to a music theme, the festival will open with a 50th anniversary screening of “Gimme Shelter” at the Coffee Butler Amphitheater and will close with the World Premiere of Doug Blush’s “Rock Camp,” which will be attended by the director, producer and special guests from the film.
“It’s cliché to say how challenging 2020 has been, but we couldn’t be more proud of the festival adapting to these times to ensure everyone’s safety,” said Michael Tuckman, director of programming for the film festival. “Having screenings outside allows us to create that communal feeling which makes the festival what it is, and being able to show so many Florida premieres is a testament to the faith filmmakers and distributors have placed in us, for which we can’t thank them enough. A film like’“Rock Camp’ at its core is about dreamers who are doing it. If that doesn’t sum up the spirit of Key West, I don’t know what does.”
The festival’s official 2020 lineup features the Florida premieres of many standouts from Sundance, Cannes, Toronto and New York film festivals, along with a special world premiere. More than 60 feature-length and short films will be shown during the five-day festival.
Narrative, documentary and foreign language films are interspersed within the programming for this year’s festival, featuring a variety of themes near and dear to the culture of Key West: films about women, LGBTQ, music and arts, and Florida.
Who picks the films?
Tuckman has served as director of programming for the Key West Film Festival since its inception in 2012. He is responsible for curating the films, events and discussions that take place throughout the festival, from securing major Oscar-contending films to spotlighting under-the-radar gems for audiences to discover. Tuckman also operates his own theatrical distribution services company, mTuckman media. He has handled Kogonada’s “Columbus,” Shane Carruth’s “Upstream Color, Detropia,” from Academy Award-nominated directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, and Rory Kennedy’s Academy Award-nominated “Last Days in Vietnam.” Films handled by his company have garnered over a dozen Academy Award nominations. Tuckman is also an associate professor at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema at Brooklyn College, teaching a course on theatrical distribution and exhibition.
