Armand Assante (American Gangster, The Mambo Kings, The Lords of Flatbush) will make an appearance at this year’s Gasparilla International Film Festival.
UPDATE: Assante will be on hand for the screening of the Romanian-made California Dreamin‘, Sunday, March 1 at 2:50 p.m. at Channelside Cinemas.
The film, directed by the late Cristian Nemescu, stars Assante as a U.S. Marine captain assigned to escort a train carrying NATO equipment bound for Yugoslavia during the war in Kosovo.
Wrote J. Hoberman, in the Village Voice: “An unfinished film set in an unsettled corner of the world, Romanian director Cristian Nemescu’s California Dreamin’ ponders history’s cruelties even as, in a wholly unexpected way, it embodies them. Six weeks into editing this darkly farcical meditation on geopolitical haplessness, the talented 27-year-old filmmaker died in an automobile accident; nine months later, his first feature would win the Prix Un Certain Regard at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.”
Assante will be honored with the festival’s Career Achievement Award for Excellence in Film, to be presented at in his honor at the Dolce Vita Lounge. That reception will be held March 1 at 5 p.m., following the California Dreamin’ screening.
The actor also appears in another GIFF film, The Steam Experiment, starring Val Kilmer.
Screen veteran Terry Moore, to be honored on opening night, at Tampa Theatre, is also among the movie-world notables slated to attend the ihird annual fest, which runs Feb. 26 through March 7 at various Tampa venues.