Select Board Approves Permits For Another Major Film Production On Nantucket This Fall

Nantucket will play host to another major film production this November.

The Select Board voted unanimously on Wednesday to grant Faraway Films permits to film scenes for the upcoming film “A Woman in the Sun” on November 12th and 13th. The initial request was for November 10th through the 12th, but it changed slightly before the Select Board’s meeting.

“A Woman in the Sun” is now the second major production in as many years to travel to Nantucket, after Universal Productions shot portions of the television adaptation of local author Elin Hilderbrand’s novel “The Five Star Weekend” on the island last fall.

Starring Renee Zellweger, Sissy Spacek and Mia Threapleton, “A Woman in the Sun” follows a bartender on Nantucket who has to grapple with her mother’s illness and her daughter’s return home. The directorial debut of Julia Cox, who wrote the Oscar-nominated film “Nyad,” the movie appears to have an interest in what it describes as “Nantucket’s dwindling middle class.” Zellweger and one other actor are expected to make the trip to Nantucket.

The town’s culture and tourism department recommended approval, pointing to the clear economic benefits of the production. “The Five Star Weekend” generated millions in revenue for local businesses and over $139,000 in fees for the town. The Select Board agreed with the recommendation.

"We're a tourism based economy, and without tourism, we're not going to have an economy," Select Board member Bob DeCosta said. "There's a happy medium."

The Sconset Civic Association and the Sconset Trust, however argued that the production, which will film partially in Sconset, will drive overtourism in the area, and that the island already receives too much attention as a tourist destination.

"We remain very concerned with any filming on-island, as these productions continue to bring increased focus to Nantucket and Sconset as a destination for social media shoots, influencers, etc., and swell the numbers of visitors who treat our beautiful island as a film set," Sconset Trust executive director Julie Meade said. "One of our residents came home, and she lives on the Bluff walk, came home into our driveway to find a man standing in the driveway and a woman coming out of her house, which was unoccupied, and when she asked them what they were doing, the woman's response was 'well, I needed a bathroom.'"

On the other hand, some Select Board members said that they felt that the film’s focus on the year-round community was a point in its favor, perhaps acting as a counterbalance to the dominant narrative of Nantucket as a summer destination.

"I think this is the antidote to some of the problems we're facing, which is [a] focus on summer, [a] focus not on what life on Nantucket like we know it as year-rounders is all about, and that's what is particularly appealing about this production to me," Select Board vice chair Brooke Mohr said.

One local’s testimony proved especially influential. Two Select Board members - Matt Fee and Jill Vieth - said that they voted for the production because of comments made by Sophia Reis, an aspiring local filmmaker who grew up on the island and spoke passionately in favor of the production and the opportunity it afforded her. Vieth specifically requested that Reis be involved with the production going forward.

"I did have the pleasure of joining the small crew for this project's scout back in August, and it got to be my first time working on a bigger set, which was really cool, and I got to talk to Julia [Cox], the writer and director on the project, who told me stories of visiting not just in the summer with her family, but in the offseason as well," Reis said. "On a completely personal note, I really hope to come back someday and film my own love letter to this community, and I wouldn't want to see my chance get jeopardized by too many invasive projects creating mistrust with the community, so I would not be promoting any projects that I didn't personally think were coming from the heart and truthful with their intentions."

Fee, the lone Select Board member to vote against approving “The Five Star Weekend,” raised some familiar concerns, but ultimately voted to approve the permits for “A Woman in the Sun.”

"I'm not concerned about the size of this or the impact of this for a few days, but I do think the bigger question for us as a community is: how do we want the island portrayed? Do we want it sort of low-key?" Fee said. "The island really is hitting its limit. How much more promotion do we need?"

In the aftermath of the vote on “The Five Star Weekend,” the town overhauled its permitting process and made it more difficult to acquire permission to film on Nantucket.

Notably, the new rules require films to submit requests 90 days in advance. The application for “A Woman in the Sun” included in the Select Board’s agenda packet, was dated August 31st, giving significantly less than 90 days of notice. However, culture and tourism director Shantaw Bloise-Murphy said Wednesday that the production had submitted a previous application on August 13th, which would be exactly 90 days before filming was initially set to begin.

"The notification did come through," Bloise-Murphy said. "Just to be fair to the applicant, they did follow the time process."

Bloise-Murphy called the initial application a “hopes and dreams” application that could not have feasibly been approved or filmed.

While on Nantucket, the crew plans to film at locations including Sconset Beach, the Summer House, downtown bars, and the Steamship Authority terminal.