Key West Film Festival Celebrates Jimmy Buffett, Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison and Other Conch Republic Legends With Florida Premiere of ALL THAT IS SACRED

The Key West Film Festival announced that it will present the Florida premiere of the short film “All That Is Sacred,” directed by Scott Ballew. Thomas McGuane, the award-winning writer of “92 In The Shade” will attend the festival, and be honored with The Golden Key Award For Artistic Excellence.

The film, which had its world premiere at the prestigious Telluride Film Festival, takes audiences back to the halcyon days when Key West was a hotbed of creative and often illicit activity for a rowdy assortment of poets, writers. musicians and other artists who first gathered in the late 1960s to fire up a community of rogues.

United in their love of literature and fishing ( not to mention cocaine and LSD), the likes of McGuane, Jim Harrison, Richard Brautigan and Jimmy Buffett made the early '70s Key West a kind of mecca. Filmmakers Guy De La Valdene and Christian Odasso documented the scene in their obscure 1974 film "Tarpon."  

It shares the screen with "All That is Sacred," a contemporary companion piece that borrows footage from the earlier film, and further honors the Florida based "hippie Algonquin Round Table," with a crew survived only by McGuane. 

McGuane will be joined by director Scott Ballew for a Q&A following the film, moderated by Shirrel Rhoadesof the Key West Citizen. After the panel, the original “Tarpon” will also be screened for the first time in Key West since the 1970s.

Brooke Christian, founder and executive director of the festival, commented: “I am thrilled to be featuring a film at this year's KWFF that includes two of my childhood idols, Jimmy Buffett and Thomas McGuane. Not only are they a huge part of why I came to Key West for the first time, they inspired me creatively to do a film festival in a place they loved.”

Thomas McGuane is the author of ten novels, including the National Book Award-nominated Ninety-two In The Shade, three works of nonfiction, and four collections of stories. His work has won numerous awards, including The Rosenthal Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and has been anthologized in the Best American Stories, Best American Essays, and Best American Sporting Essays.McGuane was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2010.

Visit https://keywestff.com for full program information – which will be announced on October 19, along with a schedule of events and travel and lodging details.

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 15-19, 2023. 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.