Sarasota Film Festival Audience Winner 'Ethel' Premieres on HBO

Sarasota Film Festival attendees will see their favorite film from this year's festival in their homes Thursday night on HBO.

Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Robert Kennedy, shares her life story with her youngest daughter Rory Kennedy, who directed the HBO film that was screened in Sarasota in April. Woven in Ethel's story is that of Robert, or Bobby, Kennedy and his time with the family, but Rory never got to know her father one-on-one. She was born just six months after her father's June 6, 1968, assassination.  

Ethel premieres at 9 p.m. on HBO, and will be available via OnDemand cable services on Friday.

Sarasota Film Festival moviegoers voted the film as the Audience Award winner, and they were treated with appearances of Rory Kennedy at select screenings and a special sit-down conversation as well.

The film displays both the humor of the Kennedy family mixed with heartbreak and tragedy.

Film Festival Director Tom Hall shared with one audience at the festival that during a screening with movie critics at Sundance Film Festival that Ethel "made a room full of jerks leave with smiles and tears."