The November festival will open with James Gray’s crime thriller Paper Tiger, featuring Roth’s character-driven costume design and a special conversation with the acclaimed designer.
The Key West Film Festival will celebrate the craft of costume design at its eleventh annual Golden Key Award presentation, honoring Amy Roth for a career that has helped bring richly detailed characters and cinematic worlds to life. The 2026 festival runs November 18–22 in Key West, Florida, with Roth set to attend in person and discuss her work.
The festival also announced Paper Tiger, James Gray’s crime thriller starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller, as its Opening Night film. The selection brings Roth’s work into focus through a story steeped in the atmosphere of 1986 New York, where family loyalty and ambition collide with the growing threat of organized crime.
Opening Night Brings Paper Tiger Into Focus
Selected by film critics Alison Willmore of Vulture and Esther Zuckerman of The Wall Street Journal, Paper Tiger continues the festival’s tradition of inviting nationally recognized critics to choose its Opening and Closing Night films. Willmore and Zuckerman will moderate a conversation with Roth following the screening, offering audiences an opportunity to explore the creative decisions behind the film’s visual world.
The film follows Irwin, an engineer played by Miles Teller, whose involvement in a seemingly lucrative business proposition from his brother Gary, portrayed by Adam Driver, leads to a dangerous encounter connected to the emerging Russian mafia. As the stakes rise, Irwin’s wife Hester, played by Scarlett Johansson, recognizes the danger facing their family, forcing the brothers toward an increasingly difficult choice.
After premiering at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival and opening the New York Film Festival, Paper Tiger is scheduled for release by NEON beginning November 13, with a wider release on November 25. Its Key West screening will take place before that national expansion.
The Art of Costume as Character
Roth’s Golden Key recognition reflects an approach to costume design that goes beyond period accuracy or visual polish. Her work is known for its attention to lived-in detail, using clothing to communicate a character’s background, personality and place in a particular time and world.
Her recent credits include Paper Tiger, Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky and Motor City, directed by Potsy Ponciroli. Her earlier feature work includes Motherless Brooklyn, Top Five, Indignation and Two Night Stand.
On television, Roth has contributed to projects including Apple TV’s Black Bird, Hulu’s The Looming Tower, HBO’s The Plot Against America and CBS’s Madam Secretary, alongside series such as Deception, Mercy and Lipstick Jungle.
Across these projects, her work has supported stories with distinct historical settings and varied creative ambitions. The common thread is a commitment to making costumes feel integral to the people wearing them, rather than simply reflecting the period on screen.
A Career Recognized by the Festival
Michael Tuckman, the festival’s director of programming, praised Roth’s ability to evoke a strong sense of time and place across both period and contemporary stories. He highlighted her work on The Mastermind and Motherless Brooklyn, as well as her latest collaboration with Gray on Paper Tiger, emphasizing how costume design can help create fully realized characters.
As part of the Golden Key honor, Roth will accept the award in person and participate in a discussion moderated by Zuckerman. The festival will also include a prerecorded presentation by Oscar-nominated costume designer Dr. Deborah Nadoolman Landis.
Roth has worked with a wide range of filmmakers, including Kelly Reichardt, James Gray, Peter Farrelly, Edward Norton, Gus Van Sant, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, the Coen brothers and Todd Field. Her credits reflect a career spanning independent cinema, studio productions and television, with costume design serving as a vital part of each project’s storytelling.
Key West Film Festival’s Focus on Film Craft
The Golden Key Award is part of the Key West Film Festival’s broader commitment to celebrating the people and creative disciplines behind contemporary cinema. Alongside screenings, the festival brings filmmakers and industry professionals into conversations with audiences through discussions and workshops.
Its Critics Focus program, which includes the juried Critics Prize and Costume Design Focus, has helped establish the festival as a destination on the fall awards-season circuit. Past participating media outlets have included The Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Rolling Stone, IndieWire, Vanity Fair and The Washington Post.
The festival also supports Florida filmmaking and emerging local talent through scholarships and awards for student filmmakers, connecting established industry voices with the next generation of storytellers.
When to Attend the 2026 Festival
The Key West Film Festival runs November 18–22, 2026. Its full program and schedule of events are scheduled to be announced on October 28.
For audiences interested in the craft behind the performances and visual storytelling of Paper Tiger, Roth’s appearance offers a chance to hear directly from one of the film’s key creative collaborators.
For festival details and program updates, visit here.
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