TROOP ZERO, starring Viola Davis and Allison Janney
TROOP ZERO, starring Viola Davis and Allison Janney

The 8th Annual Key West Film Festival announced its official 2019 lineup including major fall films from Noah Baumbach and Destin Daniel Cretton. More than 115 films and V/R pieces will be shown during the 5-day festival, which runs November 20-24. Nearly half of the feature films at the festival will be Florida festival premieres.

Baumbach’s MARRIAGE STORY (Netflix), starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, and Cretton’s JUST MERCY (Warner Bros. Pictures), starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx serve as the marquee Centerpiece films, joining the previously announced Opening and Closing Night Films, Martin Scorsese’s THE IRISHMAN (Netflix) and Trey Edward Shults’s Hollywood, FL-based WAVES (A24). The latter two films play as part of the festival’s 5th Annual Critics Focus program, in which two of the nation’s top critics curate the slots and have a pre-screening discussion. Shults will appear for a Q&A moderated by Collins and Yamato.

Other Spotlight films include the Florida premieres of Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman’s AFTER PARKLAND, who will both attend the festival, and Bert & Bertie’s TROOP ZERO, starring Viola Davis and Allison Janney and written by Florida native Lucy Alibar (Beasts of the Southern Wild). Another Florida native, acclaimed filmmaker Ondi Timoner, returns to KWFF with a special director’s cut of her film MAPPLETHORPE, which took home the award for Best LGBTQ Film at KWFF 2018.

Special events this year include previously announced appearances by Florida native Kimberly Peirce and legendary actor Tom Skerritt, who will be honored with the prestigious Golden Key Awards on the 20th Anniversary of BOYS DON’T CRY and the 40th Anniversary of ALIEN, respectively.

The fourth annual Golden Key for Costume Design will also take place, this time with an award honoring Arianne Phillips, whose recent work was showcased in Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. Deborah Nadoolman Landis, a past president of the Costume Designers Guild and former Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, will helm a video presentation of the award.

New to the program this year is the Kibbitz with Critics series, in which the curating critics share two of their favorite films from the last year over brunch. Collins will present Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s AMERICAN FACTORY and Yamato will present Florida-raised Lulu Wang’s THE FAREWELL.

Additional films in the main slate with ties to Florida include PAHOKEE, A WOMAN’S WORK: THE NFL’S CHEERLEADER PROBLEM, and THE INFILTRATORS. Special guests from each of these films will appear at the festival.

The festival will take place in Key West from November 20 to 24, and includes special event screenings and a curated selection of over 30 feature films and shorts programs encompassing narrative features, documentaries, foreign language cinema, LGBTQ cinema, VR, and works by Florida filmmakers. The shorts programs were curated from hundreds of submissions from Florida, the United States, and a dozen other Latin American, Caribbean, European, and Asian countries.

CRITICS FOCUS – OPENING NIGHT

THE IRISHMAN, Martin Scorsese

CRITICS FOCUS – CLOSING NIGHT

WAVES, Trey Edward Shults

CENTERPIECE SCREENING

JUST MERCY, Destin Daniel Cretton

CENTERPIECE SCREENING

MARRIAGE STORY, Noah Baumbach

GOLDEN KEY AWARD WINNERS

Kimberly Peirce
Tom Skerritt

4th ANNUAL GOLDEN KEY FOR COSTUME DESIGN

Arianne Phillips

SPOTLIGHT

DAVID HOGG in AFTER PARKLAND by Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman
DAVID HOGG in AFTER PARKLAND by Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman

AFTER PARKLAND, Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman

AMERICAN SPECTRUM

DRIVEWAYS, Andrew Ahn
SAINT FRANCES, Alex Thompson
TROOP ZERO, Bert & Bertie

DOCUMENTARIES

A WOMAN’S WORK: THE NFL’S CHEERLEADER PROBLEM, Yu Gu

BULLY. COWARD. VICTIM. THE STORY OF ROY COHN*, Ivy Meeropol

MIDNIGHT TRAVELER, Hassan Fazili

PAHOKEE, Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan

RAISE HELL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MOLLY IVINS, Janice Engel

THE INFILTRATORS, Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra

WELL GROOMED, Rebecca Stern

LGBTQ FILMS

AND THEN WE DANCED, Levan Akin

CIRCUS OF BOOKS, Rachel Mason

CUNNINGHAM, Alla Kovgan

END OF THE CENTURY, Lucio Castro

MAPPLETHORPE (DIRECTOR’S CUT), Ondi Timoner

PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE, Céline Sciamma

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

ATLANTICS, Mati Diop

BACURAU, Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles

OUR TIME MACHINE, Yang Sun and S. Leo Chiang

SYNONYMS, Nadav Lapid

THE WHISTLERS, Corneliu Porumboiu

KIBBITZ WITH CRITICS

AMERICAN FACTORY, Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar

THE FAREWELL, Lulu Wang

FLORIDA FOCUS: A NAME WITHOUT A PLACE, Kenny Riches

ERROL FLYNN’S GHOST: HOLLYWOOD IN HAVANA, GasparGonzález

ICE PALACE, A LOVE LETTER, Mark C. Burns

SHORTS PROGRAMS

World Comedy I
World Comedy II
World Student Docs/Drama
Animation + FL Student Docs/Drama
FL Docs
World Drama/Thriller
FL Psych/Thriller
Florida and World Student Comedy
FL Student Comedy
Environmental Docs & Animation
Havana Shorts
Virtual Reality

Share ...

Subscribe for Blog Updates

Sign up for our latest updates.

Please follow us to get updates online.