{"id":2383411,"date":"2026-04-21T21:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2383411"},"modified":"2026-04-21T21:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:25:09","slug":"sarasota-film-festival-announces-gene-simmons-other-celebrity-guests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/sarasota-film-festival-announces-gene-simmons-other-celebrity-guests\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarasota Film Festival announces Gene Simmons, other celebrity guests"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Before its return in April, Sarasota Film Festival has announced celebrity guests that will attend the opening and closing movie screenings.<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

Ahead of its return in April, Sarasota Film Festival has announced some of this year\u2019s celebrity guests<\/a>, including two famed directors and a returning rock star.<\/p>\n

The 28th annual film festival, which takes place April 10-19, will feature \u201cDeep Water\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeep Water\u201d is directed by Renny Harlin \u2014 whose other films include fellow shark movie \u201cDeep Blue Sea,\u201d “Die Hard 2,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight” and the recent \u201cThe Strangers\u201d trilogy \u2014 and produced by Gene Simmons of KISS fame, with both scheduled to attend the festival. Simmons previously attended Sarasota Film Festival in 2006<\/a>.<\/p>\n

100-plus things to do in March <\/strong>in Sarasota, Bradenton, Punta Gorda<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m grateful to the Sarasota Film Festival and the community for welcoming \u2018Deep Water\u2019 as their opening night film,\u201d Harlin said in a statement. \u201cWe made this movie to be experienced with an audience; to feel the tension, the spectacle, and the humanity together in a theater. There\u2019s something especially fitting about sharing an ocean survival story in a beautiful city by the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c’Deep Water\u2019 is a terrific action thriller starring Sir Kingsley and Aaron Eckhart,\u201d Simmons said in a statement. \u201cDirected by Renny Harlin. This is the kind of movie I love. Grab your popcorn, sit back, and fasten your safety belts. It\u2019s going to be a bumpy ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year’s closing screening will be \u201cIn the Hand of Dante,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Schnabel, who was nominated for the Best Director Oscar for 2007\u2019s \u201cThe Diving Bell and the Butterfly\u201d and whose other films include \u201cBasquiat,\u201d \u201cBefore Night Falls\u201d and \u201cAt Eternity\u2019s Gate,\u201d 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 \u201cBefore Night Falls” with select original artwork on display.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019s role in the upcoming FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n

Email entertainment reporter Jimmy Geurts at jimmy.geurts@heraldtribune.com. Support local journalism\u00a0by\u00a0subscribing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.heraldtribune.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s celebrity guests, including two famed directors and a returning rock star. The 28th annual film festival, which takes place […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2383412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[39915,22220,21751,239390,6297,21741,22783,21799,38966,21739,298114,21738,239343,239347,23759,239344],"class_list":["post-2383411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-affiliate","tag-arts","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrities-u0026-entertainment-news","tag-eamotion","tag-entertainment","tag-festivals","tag-film","tag-film-festivals","tag-local","tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-positive","tag-positive","tag-u0026"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Sarasota-Film-Festival-announces-Gene-Simmons-other-celebrity-guests.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2383411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2383413,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383411\/revisions\/2383413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2383412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2383411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2383411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2383411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}