A parade of star presenters announced the winners of Audience and Jury Awards for the Sarasota Film Festival this year. John Tengrove’s The Wound won the Best Narrative Feature Competition and Firas Fayyad’s Last Men in Aleppo (pictured) took the Best Documentary Feature competition in the major juried categories. Other major awards included Mike Ott’s California Dreams, which took the Independent Visions Prize, and Menashe, which won the Terry Porter Visionary Award.
The same evening, legendary actress Diana Lane picked up the Sarasota Film Festival Award for Cinematic Excellence, which was presented to her by Rosanna Arquette. “She really is the greatest actress we have going on screen today,” Arquette said of Lane.
Barbara Kopple’s newest documentary, This is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous, will likely be seen on the video sharing platform YouTube Red by far more people than ever purchase a ticket to see the movie in theaters. But she’s still excited to have brought the film to the Sarasota Film Festival this weekend as a Centerpiece Film. “Being on a screen in beautiful,” says Kopple, who still loves the idea of movies as a communal experience.
The sidewalks of Sarasota serve as red carpets for such Hollywood stars as Diane Lane, Stanley Tucci, Rosanna Arquette and Aisha Tyler over the next 10 days. When documentarian Rory Kennedy walks into the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall tonight, it marks the launch of the 2017 Sarasota Film Festival, now the largest film festival in the Southeast United States, and good luck getting a place inside the Sarasota Opera House tonight. Continue reading Rory Kennedy kicks off Sarasota Film Festival today→
Sarasota filmmaker and Ringling College graduate Tony Ahedo heads to St. Petersburg today, where the pilot episode of his new web-series, Barry Baker: Aspiring Serial Killer, will premiere as an Official Selection of the Sunscreen Film Festival. Written and directed by Ahedo and starring Peter Konowicz, the planned series follows the bloody and comedic escapades of an earnest but inept Barry Baker as he struggles to find the courage and faculty to brutalize his officemates. Says Ahedo, “Nobody starts as a professional.” Continue reading Tony Ahedo Brings Aspiring Serial Killer To Life→