Lou Diamond Phillips Joins Celebrity List at Gold Coast International Film Festival

The Star-Studded lineup for the 2015 Gold Coast International Film Festival was announced today by festival director Caroline Sorokoff. Actor/Director Lou Diamond Phillips is the latest addition to the list of celebrities that will be attending the Gold Coast Arts Center Gala onOctober 28th at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts.

Grammy-Award winning musician/conductor/arranger and music archivist Vince Giordano (Boardwalk Empire) and Actor/Producer star of Showtime's Homeland Navid Negahban will receive Artist of Distinction Awards in Music and Film, respectively. The Center recently announced that the Gala will be hosted by Emmy Award-winning journalist and Eyewitness News correspondent Kristin Thorne, and present the "Woman of Influence" Award to Director Patricia Riggen!

Previous honorees and special guests of the festival and the Gold Coast Arts Center include film industry VIPs Francis Ford Coppola,Hugh Grant, Baz Luhrmann, Brian Dennehy, Paul Sorvino, Ed Burns, Bruce Dern, Isabella Rossellini, Eli Wallach, Gabriel Byrne, Bill Plympton, Phil Donahue, Phylicia Rashaad, Joan Allen, Jay McInerney and Michael Cuesta, as well as composer Morton Gould, artists James Rosenquist, Oleg Cassini, Edwina Sandys and Bob Gruen, comedian Susie Essman, Broadway stars Kelli O'Hara, Melissa Errico and Savion Glover, and 4-time Oscar winner for production and costume design Catherine Martin.

This year's Gold Coast International Film Festival will feature over 60 films and dozens of filmmakers at screenings and events in venues throughout the region, including the Soundview Cinemas in Port Washington, the Bow Tie Cinemas in Great Neck/Port Washington/ Manhasset/ Roslyn, the Gold Coast Arts Center in Great Neck and the campus of LIU Post.

The complete Festival schedule will be released in October 2015. Filmmakers scheduled to attend include: award-winning director/producer/screenwriter, Morgan Spurlock; star of Showtime's Homeland, Navid Negahban; Patricia Riggen director of the new Warner Brothers film The 33 , starring Antonio Banderas, Juliette Binoche and Lou Diamond Phillips; award winning directors Rick Goldsmith, Yael Melamede and Andrew Horn; WNBA superstar Chamique Holdsclaw; several members of the band Twisted Sisterwho will join us for the US premiere of a new film about their rise to fame - plus many more filmmakers and special guests.

Film highlights this year include: The Benefactor (Richard Gere), Frank and Cindy (Oliver Platt, Rene Russo), Tumbledown (Jason Sudeikis, Rebecca Hall), When I Live My Life Over Again (Christopher Walken, Amber Heard), Son of Saul (winner Cannes Film Festival),Mustang (winner Cannes Film Festival) and other award-winning films from around the world.

The Gold Coast Arts Center is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to promoting and supporting the arts through education, exhibition, performance and outreach. For over 20 years we have brought the arts and arts in education experiences to tens of thousands of people throughout our region through our 1) School for the Arts, which offers year-round classes in all visual and performing arts to students of all ages and abilities, (2) Free public art gallery, (3) Concert and lecture series, (4) Outreach programs, which each year bring artist residencies, after-school programs, school assemblies, teacher training workshops and parent-child workshops to students, senior citizens, teachers and others in underserved communities throughout our region, (5) Year round film screening and discussion series and (6) Gold Coast International Film Festival, now in its 5th year. The Arts Center is an affiliate of the John F Kennedy Center for the for the Performing Arts: Partners in Education Program, and National Gallery of Art, both located in Washington DC.

Photo Credit: Stephen Sorokoff