The five-day Beverly Hills Film Festival continued its tradition of excellence in 2008. This year’s sold-out festival welcomed over 20,000 attendees. The festival featured four important world premieres including, “Cat Dragged In” for which Hollywood luminaries Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman came out to show their support, the film was produced by Polly Walter and directed by Nils Tim. Also premiered were, “Bad Guys”, produced by Frederica Lapenda, and directed by Rick Jacobson;  “Thunder Man: The Don Aronow Story,” produced by Max Alvarez, directed by Andrew Wainrib and narrated by Andy Garcia; and a short titled “Hole in the Paper Sky”, Jessica Biel produced and starred in the film, Bill Purple directed.

The 2008 International Beverly Hills Film Festival closed with its annual black-tie Gala and Awards ceremony at the five-star, historic Beverly Hills Hotel. In this remarkable setting, presenters honored director, Ziad Hamzeh with The Golden Palm Award (best film in all categories) for “Woman”; The Golden Palm Screenplay Competition Award to Natashia Sanders for “The Spinning Wheel”; the film “Bad Guys” was awarded three awards, including the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film, Best Producer and Best Actor; and “Hole in the Paper Sky” won the Audience Award for Best Short Film and Best Screenplay. 

The festival broke new ground this year at the black-tie Gala and Awards ceremony with the first annual presentation of two new awards. These included the International Beverly Hills Film Festival Living Legends Award which was awarded to legendary photojournalist and Hollywood photographer, Phil Stern. World-renowned producer and director Brett Ratner (“Rush Hour”) presented the award to Mr. Stern.  The second new award presented was the ACE (Advancement of Creative Expression) Awards to MYSPACE.com.  Technology and media entrepreneur, Eric Pulier presented the ACE award to famed metal goddesses, Metal Sanaz and Mistress Juliya who attended the ceremony on behalf of the MYSPACE.com to accept the award.