Gold Coast to preview film on Althea Gibson

The Island Now

The Gold Coast International Film Festival will be hosting the Long Island premiere of a new film, “Althea,” about the trailblazing tennis pioneer Althea Gibson.  The screening will take place on Saturday, Aug. 29 at 7:30 p.m. at Soundview Cinemas in Port Washington. 

A post-screening discussion will follow featuring acclaimed director, Rex Miller. The premiere is sponsored by the USTA Eastern of Long Island Region. For more information please visit www.goldcoastfilmfestival.org  

Gibson was the first African American tennis player to cross the color line. From her roots as a sharecropper’s daughter from South Carolina, to her unlikely ascension within the highly segregated tennis world in the 1950s, Gibson would go on to make history, playing and winning at Wimbledon in 1957 and 1958, and was twice became the U.S. Nationals champion – the precursor of the U.S. Open. 

The film reveals the triumphs and trials of an athlete whose life and achievements have entered the annals of African American and tennis history. 

This fall, the Gold Coast International Film Festival will be celebrating its 5th Anniversary Festival November 9-15, and recently won first place in “The Best of the North Shore” competition as the “Best Attraction” within the region.

Next up, the Festival will be showing “Time Out of Mind,” writter and directed by Academy Award nominee Oren Moverman and starring Richard Gere, Ben Vereen, Jena Malone and Kyra Sedgewick, on Wednesday, Sept. 16, at 7:30 p.m., also at Soundview Cinemas in Port Washington.

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