Success and Local Screening for Wayland Filmmaker

graduate Justin Lerner continues to enjoy success with his debut feature film, “Girlfriend,” a picture filmed largely in Lerner’s hometown of Wayland.

In early August, “Girlfriend” returned to its Massachusetts roots for the 20th Woods Hole Film Festival. It was the latest in multiple festival appearances since the film debuted at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. But Woods Hole proved to be a festival to be remembered for Lerner and his cast, as they walked away from Woods Hole with their first two festival awards. “Girlfriend” won the Jury Award for best narrative feature and the audience-selected Best of the Fest award.

“It nice to be recognized by a jury of filmmakers and film festival judges as well as an audience,” Lerner said. “Winning an audience award is almost better than winning a jury award. The jury award is like five people. The audience is hundreds of people who have seen the film.”

In its comments, the jury called “Girlfriend” a “most worthy winner, both on an emotional and a technical level.”

“Overall, the jury felt that the emotional impact of ‘Girlfriend’ elevated it to be a much-deserved winner of the feature competition,” the comments read.

Lerner said the awards are encouragement to keep going even as he looks forward to his next project, which is still up in the air.

In the meantime, Lerner said the goal with “Girlfriend” remains to have it seen by as many people as possible, so he’s still screening it publicly and entering it in festivals.

Just weeks after winning at Woods Hole, Lerner received more encouragement in the form of a Best Director award at the White Sands Film Festival in New Mexico as well as the Grand Jury Prize for “Girlfriend.”

“I don’t enter film festivals to win awards, and I don’t make films to win awards,” Lerner said. “But it’s a nice reminder that people out there are taking something from my work.”

In addition to the festivals, “Girlfriend” is currently on a college preview tour that began at UCLA in May, will continue at Cornell University on Sept. 16, and will come to the Harvard University Business School on Oct. 3.

And while “Girlfriend” has not seen a national theatrical release, it has enjoyed localized premieres in New York, Los Angeles and, later this month, in Brookline, Mass.

From Sept. 30-Oct. 6, in Brookline will screen “Girlfriend.” Special guests and events surrounding the Brookline run have not yet been announced, but will be available on the Coolidge Corner Theater website when available.

For additional information about screenings of "Girlfriend," check out the film's page on Facebook.

Editor's note: The headline has been changed from its original for clarity. "Girlfriend" will be screened locally, though is not currently scheduled to be screened in Wayland, Lerner's hometown.