The 2020 Gold Coast International Virtual Film Festival and Drive-In Series will celebrate its 10th anniversary from Oct. 13–20 with a host of unique offerings that will appeal to a wide range of audiences throughout the region and beyond.
The Virtual Film Festival, powered by CineSend, will be available via mobile and desktop web browsers as well as Apple TV and Roku apps. This special digital platform will allow you to customize your Film Festival experience either through an All-Access pass or single-ticket option, and special discounts will be offered to Gold Coast Film Society members. Films offered as part of the Virtual Festival will be available to view throughout the Festival week.
The festival will also feature four drive-in events that will take place at various venues across the Town of North Hempstead including in Great Neck and Port Washington.
This year’s lineup showcases more than 70 feature-length and short films, many with filmmaker Q&As, including documentaries, foreign films, narratives, dramas, comedies, and more. The Festival will launch on Oct. 13 with a free Opening Night Virtual Gala to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Gold Coast Arts Center, the non-profit organization that produces the festival.
Included in this year’s virtual film screening lineup are several new films saluting the visual and performing arts including BILLIE, a documentary about the life and music of iconic jazz singer Billie Holiday; “MATISSE, From MoMA and Tate Modern,” an intimate behind-the-scenes documentary celebrating the giant of modern art; Beyond Moving, which follows a South African ballet prodigy on his ‘Billy Elliot’-like journey to become a professional dancer; and a 10th-anniversary screening of the NAACP Image Award-winning film Thunder Soul, which will be followed by a Q&A with the film’s director.
Other highlights include the Sundance Grand Jury Award-winning film YALDA: A Night for Forgiveness, a provocative new film from Iran about a woman who accidentally kills her husband and must plead forgiveness from his family on a reality TV show; “The Artist’s Wife,” starring Lena Olin and Bruce Dern (GCIFF 2011 Legend Award winner); SXSW winner for Best Documentary “The Donut King,” about an immigrant achieving the American Dream by baking one of America’s favorite desserts; and “Thou Shalt Not Hate,” a tense drama about an Italian doctor and son of a Holocaust survivor, who comes across a traffic accident victim with a Nazi tattoo on his chest.
In honor of National Emergency Room Nurse’s Month, and as a tribute to all essential workers, the Festival will also present a free online screening of the new documentary In Case of Emergency which profiles the life and work of several emergency room nurses around the United States. This screening is being presented in partnership with Northwell Health’s Katz Institute for Women’s Health.
In addition to its Virtual Festival, GCIFF will present several films as part of a new Drive-In Series including The Beatles in their feature film debut “A Hard Day’s Night,” one of the “most deliriously entertaining movies of all time”; a fabulously fun program of Family Short Films appropriate for children of all ages and an award-winning classic suspense film by Alfred Hitchcock, best viewed on the big screen.
For more information regarding the complete schedule of virtual film screenings and filmmaker Q&As and drive-in events, and to purchase passes and tickets please visit www.goldcoastfilmfestival.org. To RSVP for our free Opening Night Virtual Gala celebrating Gold Coast Arts 25th Anniversary, and for ways to help sponsor or support this important event, please visit www.goldcoastarts.org/gala25.
