Friday, October 17--------Actress-turned-director Amy Redford (yes, she is the daughter of the famous Sundance guy Robert Redford), will host the East Coast Premiere of her feature film directorial debut The Guitar at the Hamptons International Film Festival this weekend.

The film, which had its World Premiere (appropriately enough) at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, had recent strong showings at the Karolvy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic and the Rio Film Festival in Brazil. The New York City-shot film has a screenplay by pioneering New York indie filmmaker Amos Poe and boasts an international cast including Saffron Burrows, Isaach De Bankole and Paz de la Huerta. The film opens theatrically in the United States on November 7 via Lightning Media.

The Guitar is a story of one woman's spiritual, emotional and creative transformation. One morning, "mouse-burger" Melody "Mel" Wilder (played by Saffron Burrows) is diagnosed with a terminal illness, fired from her thankless job and abandoned by her boyfriend. With nothing left to lose, given two months to live, she spends her entire life's savings renting an empty palatial loft in New York's Greenwich Village. Thinking she'll never have to pay the piper, she lives off her credit cards, fills the loft with the fanciest products, sensually engages both the parcel-delivery man and a pizza delivery girl and teaches herself to play the electric guitar she's craved since childhood. These life affirming experiences transform her irrevocably. The film mixes a light tone with deep moral questions about mortality and how life's energies are used (or not) when one faces the deep questions of life.

Amy Redford will attend the Hamptons Film Festival screenings. For more information on the film and to view the film's trailer, log on to: http://www.theguitarthemovie.com/about.htm

Sandy Mandelberger, Film New York Editor