The Sarasota Film Festival has announced that actor Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) will attend the 2018 festival, which takes place from April 13th to April 22nd. The festival also announced the addition of two new films to the lineup, Kendall Goldberg’s When Jeff Tried to Save the World, starring Heder, and Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace. After Goldberg debuted Jeff as a short film at the Sarasota Film Festival in 2017, the feature-length film will make its World Premiere at the 2018 Sarasota Film Festival. The film will screen on Monday, April 16th at 9pm at the Regal Hollywood 11 Cinemas, Auditorium 4. Leave No Trace, directed by Granik (Winter’s Bone) and starring Ben Foster (Hell or High Water, Lone Survivor), focuses on a veteran and his teenage daughter who live a bucolic life off the grid in the forests of Oregon, until they are apprehended and returned to society against their will. The film will screen on Saturday, April 14th at the Regal Hollywood 11 Cinemas, Auditorium 5.

The Festival also announced the timings and locations of its panels. This year, Sarasota Film Festival will feature five focuses: Sports in Cinema; Environment, Science and Sustainability; Women’s Comedic Voices; Redefining Manhood; and Musings on Musicians. All the panels will take place at the Florida Studio Theatre. WOMEN'S COMEDIC VOICES takes place on April 19th at 6pm in Bowne’s Lab, SPORTS IN CINEMA takes place April 20th at 5pm in Bowne’s Lab and ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, and SUSTAINABILITY on April 22nd at 11am in Bowne’s Lab. MUSINGS ON MUSICIANS takes place on April 22nd at 12pm in the Keating Theatre, and REDEFINING MANHOOD takes place April 22nd at 1pm in Bowne’s Lab.

Sarasota Film Festival