Actors, filmmakers and cinema lovers will come together March 22-25 in Asbury Park for the 16th Annual Garden State Film Festival. Guests can attend more than 245 film screenings, panel discussions and parties at venues throughout the Shore town. Actors Armand Assante, Xander Berkeley and Christopher Lloyd will be in attendance at their respective film screenings. They’ll also appear at Thursday night’s opening event, a Meet the Filmmakers reception at The Asbury Hotel.
Following the Gala Cocktail Party on Friday, the screenings kick off with The Wanderers: Quest of the Demon Hunter at 8:30 pm. In the film, Assante plays Louis Moudon, a vampire hunter who travels to Transylvania to investigate strange occurrences at Zalesky Castle.
On Saturday, an open talent casting call with Donna McKenna begins at 9:30 am at the Jersey Shore Arts Center. At noon in the Berkeley Oceanfront Hotel, experience a live reading of Colorblind (The Legacy of Alvin Bell), this year’s screenplay contest winner by filmmaker Pamela Peak. Panel discussions throughout the weekend cover topics such as Positioning Your Film for Success and Avoiding Legal Pitfalls.
Guests head to the movies on Saturday and Sunday. After each screening block (about two hours long), there is a Q&A session and moviegoers cast their votes for the Audience Choice award. Winners will be announced Sunday at the GSFF Awards Banquet at the English Manor.
On Saturday at 8 pm, the Jersey Shore Arts Center hosts Making A Killing, a film by Tinton Falls native Devin Hume about three morticians who get caught in a web of greed and deceit involving buried treasure. Christopher Lloyd, the Emmy-winning actor best known for his role as Emmet “Doc” Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, stars as mortician Lloyd Mickey.
A 2:30 pm screening of The Maestro closes the film program Sunday at the Paramount Theatre. Xander Berkeley, a New Jersey native who plays Gregory in The Walking Dead, portrays Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, a Hollywood composer in the 1940s and 50s.
- Weekend pass, $50, includes Thursday’s Meet the Filmmakers reception, Friday’s cocktail party and all screenings and panels
- Saturday or Sunday day pass, $20-$30, includes all events, screenings and panel discussions at all locations on that specific day
- Friday Gala Cocktail Party, $30
- Sunday Awards Banquet, $140
- Individual screening block tickets, $15