The Nantucket Film Festival announced the winners of its 31st edition on Tuesday, led by its top prizes, the Audience Award for Narrative Feature and the Audience Award of Documentary Feature. The Narrative Feature honor went to Colors of Time from French filmmaker, Cédric Klapisch. A 2025 Cannes premiere, the movie follows four cousins who trace the footsteps of a distant ancestor.
For Documentary Feature, Nantucket audiences picked (Yo) Love Is a Rebellious Bird, which scooped up the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival in February. Directed by the wife-husband team of Anna Fitch and Banker White, the film depicts the final years in the eventful life of one of Fitch’s close friends, and makes evocative use of miniatures and puppetry in recounting her earlier days.
The Nantucket Film Festival served as the launching pad for the documentary, Mighty Mary, Mary Mazzio’s documentary portrait of the first all-women’s sailing team to compete for the sport’s world-famous America’s Cup. Narrated by Hugh Jackman and Elizabeth Banks, the film received the Maria Mitchell Visionary Award presented to a female filmmaker who demonstrates vision and innovation.
Additionally, Rachel J. Morrison’s 2026 Sundance premiere Joybubbles picked up the Adrienne Shelly Foundation Excellence in Filmmaking Award, named for the late actor and director behind Waitress and including $5,000 grant recognizing the achievement of an outstanding female filmmaker. Megan Rico and Kade Atwood’s Edie Arnold Is a Loser received the Children’s Resilience in Screenwriting Award, presented to a film that features outstanding storytelling that effectively portrays the resilience and strength of children.
A writer-friendly festival, Nantucket bestowed key prizes on a quartet of Hollywood storytellers. Writer-director Paul Feig — whose long list of credits includes Freaks & Geeks, Bridesmaids, and Spy — scored the Visionary Storyteller Tribute prize, presented at the festival’s annual Screenwriters Tribute. Feig received his honor from Bridesmaids and Spy scene-stealer Rose Byrne, who hung out by the stage as the director recounted the secret origin behind her memorable hairdo in that 2015 spy movie send-up.
Ahead of the release of their latest feature, The Invite, screenwriting team Rashida Jones and Will McCormack accepted the Special Achievement in Screenwriting Award for their shared work on such features as Celeste and Jesse Forever, Toy Story 4, as well as individual projects like Jones’s acclaimed documentary Quincy, and McCormack’s Oscar-winning 2020 animated short, If Anything Happens I Love You. “The hardest part of our lives have always been the funniest,” Jones said while accepting their award. “Because without laughter, loss would be too heavy.”
During a Gold Derby-moderated conversation at the festival the following day, Jones and McCormack expanded on their approach to screenwriting, noting that they’ve spent much of their writing careers dealing with relationships in crisis — a theme that’s also part of The Invite, which is directed by Olivia Wilde and stars Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton. The Invite served as Nantucket’s Opening Night presentation and audiences were buzzing about the Sundance hit throughout the weekend.
For its Closing Night presentation, Natucket screened the first episode of Peacock’s upcoming limited series The Five-Star Weekend, based on a book by one of the island’s celebrated residents, author Elin Hilderbrand. The writer joined series showrunner Bekah Brunstetter and star Chloë Sevigny for a post-screening Q&A where the actress accepted the Compass Rose Award for Career Achievement for a career that has spanned Kids to Summer Tour, which also screened at the festival.
“I’m just so lucky I get to do this,” Sevigny said, visibly moved. “Working in the movies has given me a great life … it’s provided me with so many opportunities to travel and meet people. I feel so blessed that I’ve gotten to have a career for 30 years making the choices that I’ve made.”
See the full winners list from the 2026 Nantucket Film Festival below. (Note: Gold Derby served on two Nantucket juries — the Tony Cox Screenplay Competition Jury for Feature Screenplay and Short Screenplay, and the Documentary Shorts Jury.)
Audience Award for Narrative Feature
Colors of Time — Director: Cédric Klapisch
Runner-up: Hot Water — Director: Ramzi Bashour
Audience Award for Documentary Feature
Yo (Love Is a Rebellious Bird) — Directors: Anna Fitch and Banker White
Runner-up: One in a Million — Directors: Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes
Audience Award for Narrative Short Film
We’re Kinda Different — Director: Ben Meinhardt
Runner-up: Cardboard — Director: J.P. Vine
Audience Award for Documentary Short Film
One Last Order — Directors: Lauren DeFilippo and Sam Soko
Runner-up: A Short Doc About a Giant Pencil — Director: Daniel Straub
Maria Mitchell Visionary Award
Mighty Mary — Director: Mary Mazzio
Adrienne Shelly Foundation Excellence in Filmmaking Award
Joybubbles — Director: Rachel J. Morrison
Children’s Resilience in Screenwriting Award
Edie Arnold Is a Loser — Directors: Megan Rico and Kade Atwood
Tony Cox Screenplay Competition
Feature Screenplay: Fight Like a Mother — Writer: Meagan Noel Fulps
Short Screenplay: The Surface Calls — Writer: Matthew Kravchuk
60-Minute Episodic Screenplay: Scooped — Writer: Eric Ortega
30-Minute Episodic Screenplay: Germaphobe in a Sex Club — Writers: Jessica Ennis Moss & Caitlin Cronenberg
Teen View Jury Award
One Last Order — Directors: Lauren DeFilippo and Sam Soko
Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Storytelling in Short Film
One Last Order — Directors: Lauren DeFilippo and Sam Soko
Jury Statement: “At a time when so much of our national discourse revolves around division, One Last Order reveals how American communities can unite to celebrate a quietly remarkable individual. In their sensitive telling of Sighle Williams’ story, directors Lauren DeFilippo and Sam Soko shine a necessary spotlight on the people who impact our daily routines in small but meaningful ways. We expect that the film will encourage audiences to recognize and applaud the Sighles in their own lives.”
Grand Jury Prize for Narrative Storytelling in Short Film
Callback — Director: Matthew Puccini
Jury Statement: “The jury awards the Grand Jury Prize to Callback for its audacious, hilarious, and surprisingly moving take on a relationship in crisis. With seamless storytelling and masterful escalation of tension, the film is elegantly shot and precisely paced. The film placed the viewer squarely in the middle of the conflict, with our loyalties and perspectives shifting moment to moment in this battle of talents. With exceptional performances and explosive chemistry between the two leads, the film manages to make a heightened reality shimmer with universal truths about the fine line between partnership and competition.”
Visionary Storyteller Tribute
Paul Feig
Special Achievement in Screenwriting Award
Rashida Jones and Will McCormack
Compass Rose Award for Career Achievement
Chloë Sevigny
