The Hidden Hollywood of Nantucket

August 3, 2026

Written by Brian Bushard

Photography by Kit Noble

While they may not be household names in the true Hollywood sense, Nantucket’s summer population includes powerful producers, screenwriters and editors who are behind the scenes on the movies we all recognize. Indeed, Nantucket has an underground entertainment community that is in effect a hidden Hollywood.“I got involved in the Nantucket Film Festival before we bought a house on the island,” said Marc Resteghini, a producer with Amazon MGM Studios who executive produced the series Young Sherlock.

“As I started to learn a little bit more about the festival itself, I started to realize there were a lot of people who either lived on the island or vacationed here from the entertainment industry.” Resteghini was named the new chair of the film festival this June.

While Nantucket has a reputation for attracting politicians and Wall Street titans, lesser known is the fact that dozens of leaders in the entertainment industry have also found Nantucket as their summer refuge, just not the names you might know. “It’s like Sergeant Pepper Lonely Heart Club Band,” actor John Shea said. “We see each other but the last thing we want to do is talk about the film business. It’s more of a quiet acknowledgement of a fellow traveler than a fellowship.”

“The Vineyard is where all the actors and the writers go, the creatives,” documentary film producer Annabelle Dunne added. Dunne summers on Nantucket. “I think a lot of people that work in Hollywood come here to be with their families, relax and enjoy Nantucket, not to network. But it is a small island, and sometimes when you take away the work component and you say we’re just getting together to get together, then things can happen.”

The hidden Hollywood they have created is subtle. It’s not Tom Hanks or Meryl Streep walking up Main Street. Instead, it’s people like executive producer James Costa (The Dating Game, Queendom), composer Marco Stagni, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Madame Web, Transformers: The Last Knight), producer John Davis and island philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, who owns a majority stake in the documentary film company Jigsaw Productions. Writer and producer Army Bernstein (Air Force One, The Hurricane, Spy Game) has spent his summers on Nantucket for decades. So has producer Laura Bickford (Traffic, Duplicity), Jimmy Kimmel Live! writer Joelle Boucai, screenwriter Katie Silberman (Booksmart) and producer Donick Cary (AP Bio, The Simpsons).

Director Jay Craven has filmed half a dozen independent movies on Nantucket, cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak and NFF co-founder and line producer Jonathan Burkhart. Gina Kwon, head of television for Searchlight, comes to Nantucket every summer, not necessarily looking for inspiration for her next project but finding it anyway after spending weeks away from Hollywood. Kwon sees a throughline from the abolitionist and women’s rights speakers who came to Nantucket in the 1800s and the commitment to storytelling on Nantucket today, whether it’s through powerful movies at the Nantucket Film Festival or any other book, song or movie based on the island.

“You’re just constantly thinking about the business and creativity, and putting everything aside, all that matters is excellence in the storytelling,” Kwon said. “It’s easy to get a little caught up in the gears of the industry and feeling a little [like] you’re up and down, and all of that can be depleting. It’s always important to remember that it’s a privilege to work in the industry, and it’s a privilege to be inspired, and even if you’re not the writer or the director, to reconnect with inspiration is really important at every level. It’s why you’re doing these things.”