Sarasota Film Festival announces celebrity guests for this year's event

Shortly before making its return, Sarasota Film Festival has announced celebrity guests, as well as closing night and centerpiece screenings, for this year's event.

The 25th annual festival returns March 25-April 2 with in-person screenings and events, along with a virtual platform launching March 24 with exclusive, pre-opening access to select titles. Tickets and passes go on sale March 14.

This year's closing night screening on April 2 will be "On a Wing and a Prayer," starring Dennis Quaid as a passenger forced to safely land a plane after the pilot dies unexpectedly midflight. The film's producer Roma Downey will attend the festival, where she will also receive the Sarasota Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, and take part in an April 1 conversation and signing of her book "Be An Angel" at downtown Sarasota's Bookstore1.

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Downey is known for her starring role as Monica the angel on the CBS show "Touched by an Angel," for which she received two Emmy and Golden Globe nominations each, as well as the History Channel miniseries "The Bible," which she co-starred in as Mary, mother of Jesus and earned another Emmy nomination for executive producing it. She co-founded Lightworkers Media, MGM's faith and family division that's produced films such as 2016's "Ben-Hur," and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the same year.

Indigo Girls members Amy Ray and Emily Saliers will also attend this year's Sarasota Film Festival, where the documentary "It's Only Life After All" about the band that recently premiered at Sundance Film Festival will serve as a centerpiece screening, and where the duo will receive the Sarasota Maestro Award. The Indigo Girls rose to fame in the late '80s and early '90s for albums such as their double-platinum, Grammy-winning 1989 self-titled full-length, and for Billboard Hot 100 hit singles such as "Closer to Fine" and "Galileo."

"It's Only Life After All" will also screen in the festival's music sidebar program. Other films in the program will include "Little Richard: I Am Everything" about the rock 'n' roll icon, which premiered at this year's Sundance in the U.S. Documentary Competition, and "Love to Love You, Donna Summer," a documentary about the late Queen of Disco that premiered at this year's Berlin International Film Festival and will be released on HBO in May. Summer was a longtime resident of Manasota Key, and received Sarasota's Key to the City in 2006.

For more information on this year's festival, visit sarasotafilmfestival.com.

Email entertainment reporter Jimmy Geurts at jimmy.geurts@heraldtribune.com. Support local journalism by subscribing.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota Film Festival celebrity guests: Roma Downey, Indigo Girls