Coming-of-Age Comedy ETHAN BLOOM to Open Florida's Sun & Stars Int'l Film Festival
The screening will take place on Sunday, January 25, 2026, at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts.
By: Josh Sharpe Dec. 19, 2025
The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival (SASIFF), presented by MorseLife, will return for a fourth season next month, kicking off with the coming-of-age comedy Ethan Bloom.
Director Herschel Faber and screenwriter Maylen Dominguez will attend the Opening Night on Sunday, January 25, 2026, at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, 701 Okeechobee Blvd in West Palm Beach 33401.
As part of the Opening Night activities, SASIFF will officially present the inaugural Donald M. Ephraim/Terri Sriberg Award for Cinematic Excellence to Film Commissioner Michelle Hillery, who heads the Palm Beach County TV & Film Commission. The award is named after the festival’s respected co-founders.
“Over the last three decades, the local TV & Film Commission has made an impressive cultural and financial contribution by ‘rolling out the red carpet’ to welcome productions to the filmmaker’s paradise known as The Palm Beaches,” says SASIFF co-founder Donald M. Ephraim. “Thanks to their diligent efforts, we have become the backdrop for countless movies, television shows, commercials, photoshoots, web content and more, generating a positive economic impact of more than $200 million annually and $4 billion overall. Following in a tradition once exemplified by Burt Reynolds, Michelle Hillery and her talented team have played a significant role in promoting film and television production in Palm Beach County, and we are very proud to honor them at our Opening Night reception and screening.”
“I am deeply honored to receive this inaugural award and grateful to the Sun & Stars International Film Festival for recognizing the work of the Palm Beach County Film & Television Commission. This acknowledgment reflects the collective efforts of our team and community in supporting filmmakers and strengthening our local creative economy,” says Michelle Hillery. “The Sun & Stars International Film Festival plays an important role in showcasing exceptional storytelling while elevating Palm Beach County’s cultural profile, and we are proud to be recognized as part of that mission.”
SASIFF’s Opening Night will begin with a cinematic cocktail reception with light bites and beverages in the Cohen Pavilion at 6:30 pm, followed by the North Palm Beach County premiere screening in the Kravis Center’s Rinker Playhouse one hour later. Tickets are $90 and are available for purchase online at www.sasiff.org.
Starring Hank Greenspan from the CBS hit comedy The Neighborhood and movie/TV actress Rachelle Lefevre (White House Down, Proven Innocent, Boston Legal, Big Wolf on Campus), Ethan Bloom captures the perils of first love, religion, and speculation about the afterlife as the 13-year-old title character attempts to evade his Bar Mitzvah by converting to Catholicism. Meanwhile, his widowed dad (played by Joshua Malina from The West Wing) has engaged curvaceous redheaded Rabbi Dani to administer private instruction in the Torah.
“Ethan Bloom has a good-hearted approach to comedy that probes some of life’s big questions with a tender and all-encompassing sense of humor,” says SASIFF Artistic Director Barbara Scharres, the former director of programming at the Gene Siskel Film Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
About The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival:
The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival©, presented by MorseLife, aims to bring highly anticipated, critically acclaimed, and thought-provoking films to Palm Beach County. As a world-class film festival, it represents a major contribution to the cultural life of Palm Beach County and returns next month for its fourth season with screenings at the Kravis Center’s Rinker Playhouse (Jan. 25-31), Hooky Entertainment Delray (Feb. 1-5), with the closing night screening at glamorous new Glazer Hall in Palm Beach (Feb 6). A complete list of films that will be screened during SASIFF 2026 is available here.
Photo courtesy of the Sun & Stars International Film Festival
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