Sun & Stars International Film Festival to Premiere Seven New Comedies
The festival takes place in Florida from January 23-February 2.
The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival (SASIFF), presented by MorseLife, returns for its third season with screenings at the Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts (Jan. 23-Jan. 30, 2025) and EVO Entertainment Delray Marketplace (Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 2025).
“Among the more than two-dozen world-class movies from all over the world are seven comedies offering something in every shade of humor, whether your taste runs to hilariously funny ha-ha, funny with a rueful ironic twist, or very funny strange,” promises Barbara Scharres, SASIFF Artistic Director.
“For example, if you are in the mood for some big laughs, check out our festival centerpiece film BAD SHABBOS. You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy THE FAMILY follies piling disaster upon mishap in this one,” she says. “While Cannes Film Festival prize-winner UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, Canada’s official submission for the Oscar competition, goes down a wackily funny rabbit hole with the premise that Canada has adopted Persian as its official language.”
Another fun movie is the Festival’s closing night film, THE FRENCH ITALIAN, which poses an unusually vindictive solution to a clutch of typical New Yorker dilemmas and culminates in a screamingly funny let’s-put-on-a-show finale headlined by Emmy-nominated standup comic Ikechukwu “Ike” Ufomadu.
The seven comedies are:
BAD SHABBOS
(Comedy / Jewish, 2024, North Palm Beach County Premiere. Directed by Daniel Robbins. USA, 84-minutes)
The Centerpiece Night of SASIFF presents the Audience Award winner at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival. This funny film showcases family dysfunction, religious disparity and sibling rivalry when a family on the Upper West Side invite the Midwestern Catholic family of their eldest son’s fiancée to a Shabbos dinner for a first social blending of the clans. With tensions simmering, kosher klutziness and a prank gone wrong set the scene for chaos. By the time that there’s a dead body on the bathroom floor it starts to look like Agatha Christie-meets-Woody Allen. Kyra Sedgwick is a quirky standout as an obsessive matriarch, and Cliff “Method Mad” Smith of Wu Tang Clan excels as a helpful doorman. “One of the funniest movies films ever to take place during a Shabbos dinner”—Solzy at the Movies.
The Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center
Thursday, January 30, 7 pm
EX-HUSBANDS
(Drama/Comedy, 20234, Palm Beach County Premiere. Directed by Noah Pritzker. USA, 98-minutes)
Griffin Dunne (After Hours, An American Werewolf in London) leads a predominantly male ensemble cast in a wryly humorous tale revolving around questions of women and the lack thereof. There’s a straight line drawn between soon-to-be-married and soon-to-be-ex for three generations of men in the Pearce family. Elderly patriarch Simon (Richard Benjamin) has recently exited a 65-year union; grandson Nick is heading for the altar with a load of doubts, and the marriage of father-of-the-groom Peter (Dunne) is in the rearview mirror. Nick and pals head for a stag weekend in a Mexican resort, where Peter shows up as the uninvited guest. Soul-searching starts at the bottom of a glass for this gang and romance may be ON THE MENU for Peter. Rosanna Arquette co-stars. “Dunne is the main event with his charming portrayal”—Eye for Film.
The Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center
Sunday, January 26, 7 pm
THE FRENCH ITALIAN
(Comedy, 2024, Florida Premiere. Directed by Rachel Wolther. USA, 92-minutes)
The Closing Night Film of SASIFF 2025. A white lie about a plate of cookies is the first tipoff to the flexible ethics of 30-something Manhattan hipsters Valerie (Catherine Cohen) and Doug (Aristotle Athari). Trouble brews in the haven of their Upper West Side rent-controlled apartment when horrendous noise from below begin to punctuate their days. Rather than confronting the couple downstairs, the pair plan to trap their neighbor’s actress girlfriend with a complex revenge scheme involving auditions and rehearsals for a non-existent play. Spinning a comic clash of New York types and lifestyles, director/co-writer Wolther escalates the action to the TIPPING POINT of a fake opening night, where Emmy-nominated comedian Ikechukwu Ufomadu manages to steal the show in a tour de force performance. Co-starring Chloe Cherry. “The funniest New York movie in years”—The Daily Beast.
Note: Actor Ikechukwu "Ike" Ufomadu will be present for audience discussion.
EVO Entertainment Delray Marketplace
Sunday, February 2, 7 pm
HOLY COW
(Vingt Dieux)
(Drama/Comedy, 2024, Florida Premiere. Directed by Louise Courvoisier. France, 90-minutes – In French with English subtitles)
Winner of the Youth Prize at the 2024 Cannes International Film Festival, HOLY COW is a rough and ready coming of age film with a foodie angle, set in the Jura region of France, renowned for its famed Comté cheese and hearty cuisine. Totone (Clément Faveau), a rude red-haired rascal, is forced by a tragedy to become guardian of his little sister and the failing family farm. The making and maturation of the cheese serves as an apt metaphor for the trajectory of the story and its zesty romance. A competition for best Comté cheese is a crafty strategy for giving viewers a fascinating glimpse of a little-known aspect of French country culture. “A joyful, earthy coming-of-age film about one of the most important things in life good food”—Filmuforia.
EVO Entertainment Delray Marketplace
Saturday, February 1, 7 pm
THERE’S STILL TOMORROW
(Comedy/Drama, 2023, Florida Premiere. Directed by Paola Cortellesi. Italy, 118-minutes – In Italian with English subtitles)
Shot in black-and-white with a look that mimics the style of Italian Neorealism by Cortellisi, a multitalented popular star who cast herself as a longsuffering working-class wife and mother in mid-1940s Rome. This dark comedy riffs on the stereotypical image of a family under the thumb of a tyrannical father and irascible grandfather, with domestic violence staged for rueful laughs, but the wife just may have the last laugh when she receives a mysterious letter that holds the earth-shaking promise of change. Special Jury Award, Audience Award, 2024 Rome Film Festival. “With some nail-biting suspense…this is storytelling with terrific confidence and panache”—The Guardian.
EVO Entertainment Delray Marketplace
Friday, January 31, 7 pm
UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
(Un Langue Universelle)
(Comedy, 2024, Palm Beach County Premiere. Directed by Matthew Rankin. Canada, 89-minutes – In Persian and French with English subtitles)
Winner of the first-ever Directors Fortnight Audience Award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, and Canada’s official submission for the upcoming Oscar competition, UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE casts a strange comic spell in a lovingly bizarre tribute to Iranian cinema. In the surreal alternative universe of director Rankin, set in a time warp that weirdly resembles 1980s Canada, Persian is now the national language. A dweeby bureaucrat quits his government job and heads home to Winnipeg, bastion of prize-winning turkeys, abandoned monuments and Tim Horton’s shops serving tea from samovars. Asides, subplots and scores of delightful sight gags make this one of the most original and unforgettable films of the year. “A magnificent film, one that feels warm and familiar even as we realize just how startlingly original it is” – New York Magazine.
EVO Entertainment Delray Marketplace
Saturday, February 1, 4 pm
YANIV
(Comedy/Jewish, 2024, North Palm Beach County Premiere. Directed by Ammon Carmi. USA, 80-minutes)
Consider a Bronx high school drama teacher getting around budget cuts by funding the school’s spring musical with illegal gambling loot. That’s the wacky plot premise cooked up by writer/director Carmi and co-writer/actor Benjamin Ducoff, a real-life NYC high school teacher. Desperate for funding, the teacher gets tipped off to a high-stakes underground gambling ring where Yaniv, “the Blackjack of the Jewish people,” is the game of choice. The catch? The secret basement nightclub is run by and for a tight-knit group of Hasidic men, and the teacher and his pal don’t have a ghost of a chance at passing, until…they don Orthodox disguises complete with fake beards, and it is game on. Co-starring Annabelle Steven. “A fun and funny thriller with a lot of heart”—FilmThreat.
The Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center
Sunday, January 26, 1 pm
About The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival:
The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival©, presented by MorseLife, aims to bring highly anticipated, critically acclaimed, and thought-provoking films to Palm Beach County. As a world-class film festival, The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International represents a major contribution to the cultural life of Palm Beach County. SASIFF returns for a new season with screenings at the Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts (Jan. 23-Jan. 30, 2025) and EVO Entertainment Delray (Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 2025).
Photo Credit: Sun & Stars International Film Festival
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