“Ethel” takes audience award in Nantucket

June 26, 2012 by Adam Benzine

Filmmaker Rory Kennedy’s documentary about her mother, Ethel (pictured), has picked up the audience award for best feature film at the 17th annual Nantucket Film Festival in Massachusetts.

The doc, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah in January, shared the prize with Eric Toledano and Oliver Nakache’s French dramatic comedy The Intouchables.

Talking to realscreen earlier this year, Kennedy said that making a film about her family had proved challenging.

“There’s a lot that’s happened that’s deeply and profoundly sad, so it was hard to ask family members to revisit those things,” she reflected. “People in my family very much live in the present and go through the world looking forward, so to ask them to look back was not comfortable. It’s not like it was a bad thing, it was just not comfortable.”

Elsewhere at the festival, the jury award for best storytelling in a documentary went to Alison Klayman for her film Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. As revealed earlier this month, the film was at the center of a controversy at Sheffield Doc/Fest in England, which saw a Chinese delegation pulling out of the festival.

“This year’s festival was larger than ever both in the number of films and live events,” said the festival’s artistic director Mystelle Brabbée. “This was an exceptional year for independent films and it made it easier for us to create the largest and strongest film program to date.”

Tags: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Alison Klayman, Ethel, Ethel Kennedy, Massachusetts, Nantucket Film Festival, Rory Kennedy