"One Stupid Thing," shot on Nantucket, wins 2 awards at Boston International Film Festival
"One Stupid Thing," the film that won two awards at this year's Boston International Film Festival came to life on Nantucket featuring a Boston man who only got into acting four years ago.
Life presents unexpected opportunities. Jeffery Ornstein, an interior designer in Boston, learned that lesson four years ago when he received a gift from his partner.
Actor got into acting four years ago
"I was gifted with acting lessons, and I said, 'Acting lessons? I'm up for it, I'll do this,'" he recalled.
After the very first class, he said he was hooked. "I just fell in love with it," he said. Little did he know, that love would land him a role in the independent film "One Stupid Thing."
"I play the role of Lee Palmer, who is the wealthiest man on Nantucket Island, but he's a transplant from Texas, and he's a real charmer," said Ornstein.
The drama and coming-of-age story "has a tragedy, and it has a twist, and it has a resolution," Ornstein said. Earlier this month, it premiered at the Simons IMAX Theater in downtown Boston as part of the Boston International Film Festival.
"The director called me and said, 'You're not going to believe it, but the first festival we're going to be in is in Boston, your hometown,'" Ornstein recalled. He said being accepted into the festival was an honor in itself.
Won two awards at film festival
"For this year, we got over 6,000 submissions," said Patrick Jerome, the executive director of the festival. Out of those thousands of entries, "One Stupid Thing" won both the Indie Best Picture Award and the Indie Best Director Award.
"When I watched the film, I was blown away by the quality of the film, by how well put together the film was in so many ways, artistically and technically," Jerome said.
The process of selecting winners is rigorous. "We have a committee for selecting films, which goes through a very long process — six to seven months," Jerome told WBZ-TV. But the perks of winning are worth it. "Once a film gets selected for our festival, it opens doors in the market. We see those movies getting accepted left and right in different parts of the world."
Ornstein hopes his movie will do just that. "It's all about chemistry, and in 'One Stupid Thing,' the chemistry is remarkable," he said. "No one can say they went through life and didn't do one stupid thing."
