Monday, April 23----The Sarasota Film Festival Competition and Audience Awards were announced at a reception hosted by Metro Coffee & Wine, on Saturday afternoon, during the Festival's final weekend. The awards, which have a a cash value of $5000 for the filmmaker, were introduced by Festival Director of Programming, Tom Hall and Festival Programmer, Holly Herrick.  2007 SARASOTA FILM FESTIVAL AWARDSNarrative Feature Competition Award: WAITRESS, directed by Adrienne Shelly.Documenta...

Friday, April 20-----The Sarasota Film Festival reaches its climax this evening with its legendary Night of 1000 Stars Tribute, which will begin at 9:30pm tonight at Michael's On East (a venue change from the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall). The Festival will be paying tribute to a stellar group of film industry luminaries, including  an Excellence in Producing Award for IFC Entertainment president Jonathan Sehring (BOYS DON'T CRY, MEN WITH GUNS, WAKING LIFE, GRAY'S ANATOMY), a Lif...

Thursday, April 19-----Character actor "Joey Pants" Pantoliano and Oscar-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden arrive in Sarasota today to promote their latest film together, CANVAS, and to participate in the A Conversation With.....series at Sarasota's historic Asolo Theater. CANVAS is the directorial debut of director Joseph Greco, which was shot on location in the state of Florida. In this searing drama, Pantoliano and Harden play John and Mary Marino, a working class Florida cou...

         Wednesday, April 18-----The premiere of the indie film ORPHANS, in the Independents Vision Competition here,  is definitely bittersweet for the director Ry Russo-Young. The film, about two sisters, one a teacher in a rural town and the other a writer living in the big city who reunited for a birthday party, will debut at the Festival this weekend. The director cast old friend Lily Wheelwright, someone she has known since grade school, who also ...

FARGOWednesday, April 18----Actor/director Steve Buscemi, one of indie film's luminaries, will be honored with the World Cinema Award at the Sarasota Film Festival  this evening at a special World Cinema Celebration block party in downtown Sarasota.  Buscemi, best known for his turns in FARGO and RESERVOIR DOGS, is in town for a series of special event appearnaces. Last night, Buscemi displayed his considerable charisma at the sold-out  A Conversation With....At The Historic Asolo T...

Tuesday, April 17----Perhaps one of the many lessons to be learned from the hemmoraging of money (and reputation) that is GRINDHOUSE, the Tarantino-Rodriguez-Weinstein Brothers box office fiasco, is that if you are going to do a sleazy, low-budget exploitation film, don't spend $100 million dollars on making and marketing it. The Weinsteins, usually known for this business savvy, way overreached on this one....not fully understanding that the film geeks obsessions of their tyro directors is ...

Tuesday, April 17---While Sarasota may be noted for its beautiful sunsets, pristine beaches and cultural offerings, it is also an important city of architectural interest. In the years after the second World War, a number of architects, influenced by modernism and the Bauhaus movement, built a number of intriguing public and private buildings, which constitute an architectural legacy of some renown. Whether this legacy is properly prized by local authorities is another issue. As Sarasota grows i...

 Monday, April 17-----One of the best attended sidebars of the Sarasota Film Festival is its Emerging Jewish Voices program, featuring a diverse group of Jewish-themed films that provide a contemplative and suggestive look at the re-examination of Jewish history and a sense of what is important to contemporary Jewish culture.   The Jewish community is particularly mindful of keeping its history, both tragic and transecendent, alive in the hearts and minds of its members. This sentiment reaches...

Sunday, April 16---With the tail end of the Northeastern storm that has been plaguing the Eastern half of the United States whipping through Sarasota (for half the day, at least), the respites of the Festival’s jam-packed schedule provided a dry and warm alternative to the blustery winds outside the theater. This being my first full day of screenings, I opened myself to the serendipity of film hopping, only realizing after the day was done that there emerged a kind of symmetry to it all.The fi...

 Saturday, April 14----The Sarasota Film Festival, which began its 9th edition last night, will salute Academy Award nominated actor Edward Norton and writer/producer Brian Koppelman (who recently teamed as actor and producer of the critically acclaimed THE ILLUSIONIST) at The Reel Experience at The Lake Club Gala this evening.   Mr. Norton will be honored with the Festival’s Humanitarian Award, with Koppelman receiving an Excellence in Screenwriting honor for his work (which includes...

Friday, April 13----The Sarasota Film Festival opens this evening with its head in the stars......courteosy of the East Coast premiere of the Sundance Film Festival sleeper hit IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON. This dazzling documentary feature film, which won the Audience Award in the World Cinema Competition at Sundance, is a visually exhilirating account of the triumphs and tragedies of the Apollo space program, as recalled by the astronauts and technicians who made the giant leap into the next st...

Wednesday, April 11-----The 9th edition of the Sarasota Film Festival, one of the most dynamic and fastest growing film events in the country, will kick off this Friday evening with its most ambitious and exciting program to date. The 10-day event, which features a mix of emerging talents, international cinema and salutes to cinema greats, takes place in the beautiful Gulf Coast resort city of Sarasota, Florida (home of some of the most glorious sunsets this ex-Floridian has ever seen). The Fes...