Norton praised Ratner for persuading him and Hopkins to come to Palm Beach.
"Tony Hopkins and I ran into each into the lobby and said, what are we doing in Palm Beach again, and we realized that Bret has this enthusiasm that's infectious," Norton said.
"He can make you do anything. The only thing he can't do is to get me to commit to my lines accurately."
Veteran actor James Whitmore also received a lifetime achievement award at the festival. Whitmore, who earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for 1949's Battleground, most recently starred in The Shawshank Redemption and The Majestic.
"I knew there was a reason to live to 80," Whitmore joked.
The festival, now in its seventh year, kicked off Thursday, April 11 with A Month of Sundays, a drama starring Rod Steiger.
Scheduled to end Thursday, April 18, the festival's lineup includes a mixture of American and foreign independently produced shorts and features. The most prominent films in this year's festival includes My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Triumph of Love, One Eyed King and A Time for Dancing, starring festival guests Larisa Oleynik and Lynn Whitfield.
Ratner served as executive producer of 2 Birds With 1 Stallone, a biography of boxer Lou Benedetti which also screens during the festival.
Ratner and Norton will return to Key West to shoot scenes for Red Dragon. Hopkins, who has completed his work on Red Dragon, immediately left for Montreal to start shooting The Human Stain with Nicole Kidman.
Norton found it "a blast" to be the latest FBI agent to reluctantly seek Hannibal Lecter's services.
"Most of us would be disinclined to be involved in the third of any series, but in my case, it's a testament to the strength of Ted Tally's script and to Brett's enthusiasm," he said.
Hopkins has no concerns about returning for a third time to the role that won him an Oscar for 1991's The Silence of the Lambs.
"They offered me the part, and I said, OK," he said. "Good script. Good cast. Ed Norton. Ralph Fiennes. Emily Watson.
"I had to think about it before agreeing to doing it again. But that's the last. No more."