Behind The Lens: Amy Roth Dresses The Part As 'Key West Film Festival' Honors Her Costume Design Legacy

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A great costume doesn't simply dress a character. It tells you who they are before they've spoken a word. The Key West Film Festival is celebrating that often-overlooked art form by honoring Amy Roth with its eleventh annual Golden Key Award for Excellence in Costume Design. The recognition arrives alongside the festival's Opening Night selection, Paper Tiger, the latest crime thriller from James Gray, starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, and Miles Teller.

Running November 18–22, 2026, the festival will welcome Roth for an in-person award presentation and conversations exploring the creative decisions that have helped bring decades of cinematic characters to life.

The Art Of Dressing A Story

Costume design can quietly establish a character's personality, social standing, and emotional state without demanding the audience's attention. For Roth, that attention to detail has become a defining feature of her work across independent films, major studio productions, and television.

Her credits include Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind, Edward Norton's Motherless Brooklyn, Top Five, and Indignation, alongside television projects such as Black Bird, The Looming Tower, and The Plot Against America. Each production presents its own demands, from recreating recognizable periods to finding the subtle details that make contemporary characters feel believable.

That ability to build personalities through clothing sits at the center of the festival's recognition. Reflecting on Roth's contributions to character-driven filmmaking, Michael Tuckman, Director of Programming for the 'Key West Film Festival,' explained:

When one thinks of bringing characters to life in some of the most consequential films to have been set in the last few decades of the 20th century, one must put Amy Roth at the apex of such costume designers. From taking us to New England and Brooklyn of the 1970s in THE MASTERMIND and MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN to transporting us to early 1990s New York in her latest work in PAPER TIGER, her design evokes a sense of time and being. She brings the same force to her modern dress work as well, reminding us that a costume designer’s art is not clothing the actors but in creating the characters.

His observation gets at something fundamental about costume design: audiences may remember a performance without consciously recognizing how much the wardrobe contributed to making that performance convincing.

Paper Tiger Opens A Window Into Roth's Craft

The festival's Opening Night presentation of 'Paper Tiger' places Roth's latest work directly in front of audiences. Set in 1986 New York, the film follows Irwin, a naïve engineer played by Teller, who accepts a promising business opportunity from his brother Gary, a former police officer portrayed by Driver.

What begins as a potentially lucrative arrangement becomes increasingly dangerous after Irwin witnesses something at the Gowanus Canal that draws the brothers into a confrontation with the emerging Russian mafia. As the situation escalates, Irwin's wife Hester, played by Johansson, recognizes the danger while Gary faces an impossible decision involving the people he loves.

For a period crime thriller, wardrobe becomes another tool for establishing the world surrounding those decisions. The clothes must belong to the time and environment while remaining specific to the individuals wearing them. Roth's work offers audiences an opportunity to consider how those choices contribute to a story driven by family relationships, ambition, and escalating danger.

Following its Cannes Film Festival premiere and selection as the New York Film Festival's Opening Night feature, 'Paper Tiger' will begin its theatrical release through NEON on November 13, before expanding nationwide November 25.

Giving Costume Design Its Moment

The 'Key West Film Festival' will extend the celebration beyond the screening itself. Roth will participate in an Opening Night conversation moderated by Alison Willmore of Vulture and Esther Zuckerman of The Wall Street Journal, who selected 'Paper Tiger' as part of the festival's longstanding critics-curated Opening and Closing Night tradition.

Zuckerman will also moderate a separate discussion of Roth's career, while the award presentation will include a prerecorded contribution from Oscar-nominated costume designer Dr. Deborah Nadoolman Landis.

The programming reflects the festival's broader commitment to bringing film criticism and behind-the-scenes craftsmanship into the same conversation. Through its Critics Focus and Costume Design Focus initiatives, Key West gives audiences a chance to examine not only the stories appearing on screen but also the creative disciplines responsible for shaping them.

Roth's Golden Key recognition is a reminder that some of cinema's most effective storytelling happens without dialogue. A carefully chosen jacket, a worn-in shirt, or an outfit that feels inseparable from its character can communicate years of history in a single frame.

The actors may bring the characters to life, but costume designers help give those lives a history. The 2026 'Key West Film Festival' runs November 18–22, with its full program and event schedule scheduled for announcement on October 28 at keywestff.com.