Bob Mackie Feted at Fort Lauderdale Worldwide Movie Pageant

The 2024 Fort Lauderdale Worldwide Movie Pageant opened Nov. 8 with a screening of “Queen of the Ring,” writer-director Ash Avildsen’s biopic of feminine wrestler Mildred Burke starring Emily Bett Rickards, Josh Lucas and Walton Goggins. Marking the competition’s 39^th 12 months, the movie commenced ten days of programming throughout seven South Florida venues, together with the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award to costume designer Bob Mackie.

Talking from the crimson carpet Friday evening, FLIFF chair Lisa Grigorian thrilled at this 12 months’s programming. “We’re so excited for this 12 months’s competition,” Grigorian stated. “We’ve bought 100 movies from 35 nations — one thing for everyone.”

Attending the competition for the primary time, “Queen of the Ring” star Gavin Casalegno spoke about what resonated with him in Burke’s true life story. “I actually needed to make movies that may make the world a greater place, and I needed to do extra movies that may make folks take into consideration simply the world and their life and humanity after they completed watching it,” he stated. “I really feel like this film does a fantastic job at exhibiting this underdog story … to really win and alter historical past for the higher.”

Amongst these showing on opening evening had been solid and crew members of “Past the Rush,” together with writer-director Robert Sayegh and actors John Savage (“The Skinny Purple Line), Jayce Bartok (“Founders Day”) and Invoice Barrett (“Fly Me To the Moon”). Sayegh defined that the movie took 33 years to convey to the display. “It’s taken a number of work over my life attempting to recover from my addictions, getting sober, and attempting to place collectively a narrative that offers with a number of heavy points, however in a approach that everybody can relate to,” he stated. “I believe that it’s a narrative that everybody’s going to search out one thing in to remove with them to assist them by way of what their life and a number of the points that they’ve had.”

Added Savage, “it’s a delicate story about maturing and coping with life and the challenges that all of us face … psychological well being or abuse or alcohol dependancy, we will discuss lots about it, nevertheless it’s a group effort. And this movie actually, for me, was one thing for the group.”

Additionally on the carpet was Mackie, who together with Selection acquired the Fort Lauderdale Worldwide Movie Pageant’s lifetime achievement award for greater than six many years of extraordinary work in costume and vogue design. He acquired the award the next day on the Savor Cinema forward of a Saturday afternoon screening of “Bob Mackie: Bare Phantasm,” Matthew Miele’s chronicle of Mackie’s life and work. After the movie, Mackie carried out a brief query and reply session, first reflecting throughout his profession on what tells him {that a} shopper will show to be a great collaborator.

“You would inform,” Mackie stated. “I imply, when Cher walked within the first time I assumed she was going to be this large, goth, tall lady and she or he was this little Audrey Hepburn-like youngster, and she or he simply cherished getting dressed up and she or he simply stripped right down to nothing. She was simply superb.

“And Miley Cyrus is like that — you might inform that that youngster got here out of the womb desirous to sing and dance and bump and grind.”

Afterward, he spoke about from the place he attracts inspiration — from each the particular person he’s dressing, and the event they’re dressing for. “You need to type of inform the viewers from the way in which you gown them the place they’re coming from,” he stated, “and who they’re and what they’re considering of their mind. It’s an attention-grabbing job, nevertheless it’s one which I simply love.”

With a resume that reads like a Hollywood who’s who — from Cher to Carol Burnett to Tina Turner to Pink — Mackie has earned the fitting to decelerate a bit, a lot much less relaxation on his immaculately-tailored laurels. However because the dialog got here to an finish, he indicated that he felt as keen about his work as ever. “I get actually impressed when the undertaking comes up and it’s in your fingers, the script, and also you meet who’s going to play the components,” Mackie stated. “However you must fear about who’s sporting it. And in the event that they’re not going to look good in one thing, you don’t design for them. Lots of people simply design one thing fabulous and it will get placed on somebody who’s not so fabulous.”

Mackie’s participation continued later that night together with his attendance of the Barbie’s Las Olas Seashore Home Social gathering, hosted by FLIFF president and CEO, Steve Savor. A portion if the proceeds from the invite-only occasion will go to Memorial Healthcare and Positively Pink. The occasion anchors a broad spectrum of nonprofit and South Florida group assist efforts; a Nov. 11 screening of “The Quick Recreation” was sponsored by ABA Facilities of Florida, Confirmed Autism Care to learn The Ernie Els Basis, for instance, and the Nov. 15 screening of “Venera” will assist the Make-A-Want Fooundation of Southern Florida.

Resplendent in Barbie pink, the celebration continued into the evening with performances by The Jersey Ladies, who sang traditional disco and R&B songs whereas Greta Gerwig’s Oscar-winning movie performed on a display overlooking the causeway. Mackie beforehand designed 23 totally different costumes for the doll, making her not simply an icon however a vogue icon. With a 24^th doll on the way in which, an public sale underway with Julian’s, and a wider launch of the documentary forthcoming, Mackie’s FLIFF award might should stretch to suit a couple of extra achievements into his unbelievable life.