Isabelli Rossilini Hosts Pre-Gold Coast Film Festival Event

Actors Bill Connington, Juliette Bennett, and Anthony Haden-Guest, stars of the short film THE THORNHILLS OF PARK AVENUE, attended "Isabella Rossellini: An Evening of Screenings and Conversation" on May 9 at the NYIT Theater, directly across from Lincoln Center, on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was a special pre-festival event of the Gold Coast International Film Festival. THE THORNHILLS OF PARK AVENUE will be premiered at the new festival, the week of June 1, on Long Island's Gold Coast. (www.goldcoastfilmfestival.org)

The packed auditorium watched screenings of Rossellini's films MY FATHER IS 100 YEARS OLD, selections from GREEN PORNO, and ANIMALS DISTRACT ME. Afterwards, David Schwartz, the Chief Curator at the Museum of the Moving Image interviewed Rossellini, who also fielded questions from the audience. Other speakers included Jon Kaiman, the supervisor of the Town of North Hempstead, and Regina Gill, the founder and executive director of The Great Neck Arts Center, and The Gold Coast International Film Festival.

THE THORNHILLS OF PARK AVENUE was penned by Connington, and directed by the noted director Thomas Caruso, who also directed Connington in the play and film versions of ZOMBIE by Joyce Carol Oates. (www.zombiethefilm.com) Bennett and Connington play a young society couple, James and Elisabeth Thornhill, who are visited by a sardonic British guest-Anthony Haden-Guest, who in "stunt casting," plays himself-an urbane man-about-town. Mr. Haden-Guest is the half-brother of the film director Christopher Guest.

The synopsis of the film reads, "A young Park Avenue couple invites a British writer and cartoonist for cocktails. Quips and satire ensue. The story is: what is more important: money or happiness? The answer? Cocktails, apparently." Original music for the film is by Deirdre Broderick, composer of ZOMBIE.

Thomas Caruso is currently directing GREETINGS by Tom Dudzick for Penguin Rep Theatre. Bennett's film THE COUPLE is gaining kudos on the internet's FUNNY OR DIE, and Connington is currently penning the feature-length screenplay of ZOMBIE.