Gold Coast Film Festival returning with full in-person screenings
Harry Styles stars in "My Policeman." Credit: Amazon Content Services LLC/Parisa Taghizadeh
This year’s Gold Coast International Film Festival will be held fully in-person for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Screenings will take place Oct. 10-25 at Manhasset Cinemas and at public libraries on the North Shore.
“There’s really nothing like seeing a movie in a theater with other people,” said festival director Caroline Sorokoff. “Maybe this will bring them out and remind them how great the movie theater experience is.”
The festival promises several feature films and roughly 40 shorts. Among the features are “iMordecai,” starring Judd Hirsch as a Holocaust survivor grappling with today’s technology-driven world; “The Lost King,” about an amateur historian (Sally Hawkins) searching for the remains of Richard III; and “Love, Charlie,” a documentary on the famed restaurateur Charlie Trotter. There also will be an advance screening of “My Policeman,” featuring pop singer Harry Styles as a closeted gay cop in the 1950s, and a free singalong screening of Disney’s animated musical “Encanto.”
The festival is making its shorts programs free for the first time in several years. They’ll be screened at the Great Neck and Port Washington public libraries, with some filmmakers scheduled to attend.
Masks will be recommended but not required at all screenings.
The Gold Coast festival has seen a number of its usual cinema partners go dark in recent years. Bow Tie Cinemas in Port Washington closed unexpectedly in 2018, and Squire Cinemas in Great Neck closed within the first year of the pandemic. This year, the festival’s only theatrical partner is Manhasset Cinemas, according to Sorokoff.
“At the end of the day, we want people to come see our movies, but we also want people to come see movies in the theater in general,” she said. “It supports artists and it supports small businesses and it fosters community.”
For more information and to purchase tickets, go to goldcoastarts.org.
