Before its return in April, Sarasota Film Festival has announced celebrity guests that will attend the opening and closing movie screenings.
Ahead of its return in April, Sarasota Film Festival has announced some of this year’s celebrity guests, including two famed directors and a returning rock star.
The 28th annual film festival, which takes place April 10-19, will feature “Deep Water” as its opening night film. The movie, starring Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley, follows a plane forced to make an emergency landing in shark-infested waters.
“Deep Water” is directed by Renny Harlin — whose other films include fellow shark movie “Deep Blue Sea,” “Die Hard 2,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight” and the recent “The Strangers” trilogy — and produced by Gene Simmons of KISS fame, with both scheduled to attend the festival. Simmons previously attended Sarasota Film Festival in 2006.
“I’m grateful to the Sarasota Film Festival and the community for welcoming ‘Deep Water’ as their opening night film,” Harlin said in a statement. “We made this movie to be experienced with an audience; to feel the tension, the spectacle, and the humanity together in a theater. There’s something especially fitting about sharing an ocean survival story in a beautiful city by the sea.”
“’Deep Water’ is a terrific action thriller starring Sir Kingsley and Aaron Eckhart,” Simmons said in a statement. “Directed by Renny Harlin. This is the kind of movie I love. Grab your popcorn, sit back, and fasten your safety belts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
This year’s closing screening will be “In the Hand of Dante,” based on the 2002 novel by Nick Tosches, featuring a cast including Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich and Jason Momoa and directed by filmmaker and painter Julian Schnabel. The movie premiered out of competition at last year’s Venice International Film Festival.
Schnabel, who was nominated for the Best Director Oscar for 2007’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and whose other films include “Basquiat,” “Before Night Falls” and “At Eternity’s Gate,” will take part in a moderated discussion following the screening, and receive an Achievement in Directing Award. There will also be a retrospective screening of “Before Night Falls” with select original artwork on display.
Other festival events will include a chat with stunt coordinator Jayson Dumenigo exploring the craft, a conversation at Ringling College of Art and Design examining AI’s role in animation, and a free sports and business panel at New College, featuring a youth soccer clinic, internationally themed food trucks and an outdoor film screening in celebration of Florida’s role in the upcoming FIFA World Cup.
A full festival lineup and additional honorees will be announced soon, with tickets available for purchase beginning March 20. For more information, visit sarasotafilmfestival.com
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