Celebrating Cinema: The return Of The Cine-World Film Festival

By Gus Mollasis | November 2022

I am not shy with my opinion about the best way to see great cinema. 

It’s not on a cell phone or tablet. It’s not by streaming on your TV in your jammies surrounded by the comforts of your home. And it’s especially not by watching it at home alone (sorry, Macaulay Culkin). 

Great films should be seen in a movie theater—on the big screen, with your fellow citizens and cinephiles.

There is no better community experience where you can enjoy the laughs and tears together with your fellow film-loving neighbors than in the theatre. 

A place where you can cover your eyes, move to the edge of your seat, and get into the plight of the protagonist. A setting where you take in the scenes together and in the end, decide if the story personally moved you or not. And finally—a place where you can sit in the dark without distractions and sometimes if you are lucky, sit in silence together and let the whole movie-going experience wash over you. 

I once asked the great actor, Sam Elliot, how he knew when the film was working.

In his iconic and often imitated voice, he beckoned, “When I hear the silence in the movie theatre, I know that it’s working.”

Back in 2019, at the 30th Cine-World Film Festival, I took in the film Parasite in a crowded Burns Court Cinema.  On that occasion, the film was really working. The silence was palpable as we all sat together, mostly in silence, as Bon Joon-Ho’s masterpiece blew most of us away. 

Now, thankfully, films and movies are back after the pandemic. They are being played and shared as they were intended—on the big screen.

And, after a two-year hiatus, the Cine-World Film Festival is back, returning for the 31st time to the screens at Burns Court Cinemas in the Burns Court Historic District from November 11 through November 18. 

This film event has been an important cultural part of this community ever since Sarasota Film Society founders, Dick and Sue Morris, envisioned their film dream many years ago. The President and Vice-President of The Sarasota Film Society, Renee Baggott and Trish Calandra, are anxious to screen:    

“After a 2-year hiatus due to the pandemic, SFS is proud to present Cine-World Film Festival 2022. We are excited to bring the festival back to Burns Court Cinema and have our members and community be able to enjoy the theatrical release of these great films the way they were intended to be seen.” 

One of the films they are most excited about is Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blues, which will be opening this year’s festival.  

Calandra adds, “I am very much looking forward to seeing, as the music and life of Louis Armstrong is a fascinating story.”   

Fascinating stories are something Josh Goodnough, the CIO/Program Director for the Sarasota Film Society is used to. He works behind the scenes to ensure that all the magical scenes are visible out front by the movie-going public. Still, even he is a little excited about the upcoming return of the Cine-World Film Festival. 

“I love that Cine-World is back because this gives me the opportunity to feel like I’m more of a movie fan back in the theater with like-minded individuals than just a person who’s in the film industry working behind the scenes to bring the festival together.”

Among the titles from around the world that Cine-World will be featuring at this year’s festival include the following:  

• Living—a 2022 British drama film directed by Oliver Hermanus, set in London. depicting a bureaucrat (played by Bill Nighy) facing a fatal illness. 
• Utama—a drama directed by Alejandro Loayza Grisi and was submitted by Bolivia as an entry for the 2023 Academy Awards for Best International Film. 
• Framing Agnes—a Canadian documentary film, directed by Chase Joynt  that examines transgender histories, centering on a cast of transgender actors reenacting various case studies from Harold Garfinkel’s work with transgender clients at the University of California, Los Angeles. 
• The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future—directed by Francisca Alegría and is released in Spanish with English sub-titles displaying an environmental fable with elements of magical realism. 
• The Forger—a German film Directed by Maggie Peren about a young man who won’t let anyone take away his zest for life, especially not the Nazis. In his quest to discover life, he has the misfortune of living as a Jewish person in Berlin in the 1940s.

Other films to be featured will include There, There, a romantic drama by Andrew Bujaiski; Chile 76, directed by Manuela Martelli; Hunt, a South Korean espionage action film directed by Lee Jung-Jae in his feature directorial debut; Afghan Dreamers, a documentary by David Greenwald and many others.

In keeping with the original mission statement and goal, the Cine-World Film Festival features the best international and independent films broadcasted on some of the most iconic film festival circuits including The Toronto International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, and Sundance.     

The 2022 Cine-World Film Festival will close with Broker, a 2022 South Korean drama film directed and written by Hirokazu Kore-eda, revolving around characters associated with baby boxes, which allow infants to be dropped off anonymously to be cared for by others. It is just the kind of film that will invite spirited conversations and analysis from film fans and critics alike.

For over three decades, the Cine-World Film Festival has given area movie buffs a chance to see the finest of international cinema—taking in engaging stories filled with controversy, political intrigue, and cultural nuances.

It has once again given Sarasota an opportunity to see great cinema on the big screen and most importantly, see the magic of cinema working.

A chance to sit in the dark—and yes, if you’re lucky, in silence—letting the frames wash over you. A time for the world to see cinema again. And a time to celebrate international and independent film at the 2022 Cine-World Film Festival.