The Gold Coast International Film Festival will return Oct. 20-Nov. 6, bringing new, award-winning independent and foreign films to the North Shore.
Produced by the Gold Coast Arts Center since 2011, the festival has highlighted films that have received the highest film industry awards, including “Minari,” “The Two Popes” and “Marriage Story.”
The festival and the organization’s year-round film screenings have premiered nearly 1,000 feature length and short films from over 30 countries.
“We’re trying to bring people together – to laugh, cry, learn and just to foster community amongst people,” festival director Caroline Sorokoff said. “Film is certainly one of the most accessible ways to do that, because it’s one of the most affordable ways for people to experience art in large groups.”
One of the hallmarks of Gold Coast’s film programs are filmmaker and special guest Q&As. Some notable moments include an audience singing “Happy Birthday” to Bruce Dern as he accepted the 2011 Legend Award, Baz Luhrmann discussing his filmmaking process in a live introduction to the sold-out premiere of “The Great Gatsby” and Hugh Grant joking about his favorite diner meals while filming in Nassau County.
Previous honorees and special guests of the festival and the Gold Coast Arts Center include Francis Ford Coppola, Brian Dennehy, Paul Sorvino and Ed Burns.
While the festival does not have a theme, Sorokoff said many of the films deal with different human relationships – including friendships, parents-and-children and strangers – in interesting and thoughtful ways.
“Everyone always talks about how our society is so divisive, and there’s this hesitancy for people on different sides of whatever it might be to interact in ways that maybe we did in the past,” Sorokoff said. “And it was really heartening because one of the things we were noticing is that a lot of the films that we were drawn to were ones that really beautifully examined these different types of relationships between people.”
An example of this is “The Ties That Bind,” one of Sorokoff’s personal favorites in this year’s lineup. The film is an adaptation of Alice Ferney’s book “L’Intimité.”
“It’s just a beautiful, thoughtful film that I think anyone can relate to, and I very highly recommend it,” Sorokoff said. “It’s really a film that makes you think and feel all sorts of things. When you leave a movie and you’re still thinking about it, that, to me, is a sign of a great film.”
Another film Sorokoff recommended is She Dances, which stars Steve Zahn and his real-life daughter Audrey Zahn as a father and teen daughter confronting their fractured relationship on the road to her final dance competition. The film also features Ethan Hawke and Rosemarie DeWitt.
“It looks at an important relationship that many people can relate to in a really thoughtful, interesting and entertaining way,” Sorokoff said.
Another one of Sorokoff’s favorites is “Rebel with a Clause,” a docu-comedy that follows Ellen Jovin, a self-proclaimed grammar guru, as she takes her pop-up grammar advice stand on a road trip across the 50 states.
“What makes this film just delightful is the experiences that Ellen and her husband have with all the people that she meets around the country, of all ages, of all backgrounds, of all religions, of all races and people just coming together and talking to each other,” Sorokoff said. “I really do think that anybody would walk away from this film with a smile on their face.”
Sorokoff emphasized that viewers do not have to be grammar gurus themselves to enjoy the film, as she never thought of herself as someone who cared about grammar.
“It’s more that I actually got annoyed when people corrected me,” Sorokoff said. “So, certainly, I was not drawn to this film because of the grammar aspect of it.”
Feature films showing at North Shore Towers Cinema include “For the Love of a Woman” on Monday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m., Jinxed on Tuesday,” Oct. 21 at 7 p.m., “The Catskills” on Monday, Oct. 27 at 7 p.m., “The Ties That Bind” on Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m., “Rebel With a Clause” on Monday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. and “The Ring” on Tuesday, Nov. 5 at 7 p.m.
“She Dances” will be shown at Landmark on Main Street on Sunday, Oct. 26 at 6:30 p.m.
“Advise and Consent,” a 1962 American political drama, will screen on Thursday, Nov. 6 at 1 p.m. at Port Washington Public Library.
The festival will also screen over 45 short films for free at area libraries, as curated by Alexandra Gil. Great Shorts: Series 1 will be screened on Oct. 21 at 2 p.m. at the Great Neck Library and on Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. at the Port Washington Public Library.
Great Shorts: Series 2 will be screened on Oct. 28 at 2 p.m. at the Port Washington Public Library and Great Shorts: Series 3 will be screened on Nov. 3 at 2 p.m. at the Great Neck Library.
Additionally, Gold Coast’s free Family Shorts program will lead into the Festival with special screenings on Monday, Oct. 13 at the Port Washington Public Library and the Great Neck Library. The screenings require online reservations.
The festival will also feature an author talk event with Yaakov Katz, author of “While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East.” The conversation between Katz and Gary Rosenblatt, journalist and publisher/editor of The Jewish Week of New York, will take place at Temple Beth-El of Great Neck on Wednesday, Oct. 22 at 7 p.m.
The festival holds new significance following the COVID-19 pandemic and the accessibility of movies through streaming services.
During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, movie theaters around the country closed, including Long Island spots like Seaford Cinema and The Showcase Cinema de Lux Broadway.
Five years since the pandemic, box office numbers are still struggling.
According to NPR, this year’s first nine weeks of ticket sales in North America ($1.09 billion) are an improvement over last year, but they’re still less than the pre-COVID weeks of 2020 ($1.67 billion).
As a result, streaming is overtaking theaters for movie watchers, according to AP News. A survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about three-quarters of U.S. adults said they watched a new movie on streaming instead of in the theater at least once in the past year.
“People got into the habit of watching things at home. They forget how amazingly wonderful it is to be in a movie theater surrounded by other people who are all laughing and crying and being scared and all of that at the same time,” Sorokoff said.
Sorokoff acknowledges the effort it takes for viewers to leave their homes when so many films are now readily available to watch at home.
“Every time I introduce a film, I always say, ‘Give a round of applause to yourselves for coming out of your houses and coming into a room with 200 plus other people and having these shared experiences,’” she said.
Tickets are available at www.goldcoastarts.org.
