Robin Givens, Jake Paltrow will be at this year's Gold Coast International Film Festival
Mercedes Ruehl, left, plays competition chess against Sierra McCormick in Dominion Pictures' "The Nana Project," directed by Robin Givens. "The Nana Project" will be screened at this year's Gold Coast International Film Festival. Credit: Dominion Pictures / Hunter O’Brien
Robin Givens and Jake Paltrow will be among those attending the Gold Coast International Film Festival when it returns for its 13th edition this weekend.
The festival runs Oct. 15-Nov. 1 with screenings at Manhasset Cinemas and other venues on the North Shore.
The festival will screen seven feature films and 40 short films. There will be several special events, including a screening of the 1985 pop musical “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (with a pre-screening party and a Neiman Marcus Beauty Bar), and a family-friendly afternoon of arts and crafts. At least six screenings will include Q&As with guest speakers who do not fall under the rules of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, which forbids many actors from publicizing their films.
“After everything that’s happened over the past several years, we’re just incredibly proud to be presenting a program that not only features great films, but many filmmaker Q&As,” said festival director Caroline Sorokoff. “That is something that’s been difficult for organizations to do for multiple reasons.”
Givens will appear at the festival not as an actor but as a director: Her film “The Nana Project” is a mockumentary about a retired chess master (Mercedes Ruehl) who concocts a plan to enter a competition as a way to reunite her estranged grandchildren (Nolan Gould and Will Peltz). Givens will speak after a screening on Oct. 24.
Jake Paltrow, another actor-filmmaker, will also be on hand as the director of “June Zero,” a drama that revisits the 1961 trial of the notorious SS officer and Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann. Paltrow (the brother of actor-entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow) will accompany his film on Oct. 17.
The festival’s long-running commitment to including Jewish-themed films among its international programming takes on a new relevance this year following the recent attacks on Israel. A newly added free event led by several guest speakers, “Community & Conversation — A Special Evening in Support of Israel,” will take place Oct. 30 at Temple Beth-El of Great Neck.
Tickets for single screenings are $15; some events are free. For more information, call 516-829-2570 or go to goldcoastarts.org.
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