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The Ursula Ryan Lifesaver Award for Cinematic Achievement

We renamed our honoree award after a friend to the festival from the beginning, but also a friend to filmmakers here and elsewhere. As head of Weist-Barron-Ryan, Ursula led a local organization that offered casting services to filmmakers who wanted to shoot in Atlantic City, but also acting classes to aspiring and veterans alike.

We have two inaugural winners, one a veteran actor, the other a local filmmaker.

Garry Pastore has amassed well over 60 roles as actor over a 35 year span. He was born in New York City and he began his acting career at the early age of eighteen. His first foray into acting was a high school production of West Side Story and his first film credit was Prizzi's Honor, alongside veteran actor, Jack Nicholson in 1985. 

Garry has most recently starred alongside Alan Powell in the Spencer T Folmar film about the heroin crisis titled, Shooting Heroin expecting a 2020 release and co-starring Twin Peaks phenom, Sherilyn Fenn along with Nicholas Turturro, Cathy Moriarty and Lawrence Hilton Jacobs. Earlier last year Garry co-starred in the Happy Madison Production, The Week Of, Directed by Robert Smigel, starring Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Steve Buscemi and Rachel Dratch which made its debut on Netflix in April 2018. He also recently co starred in the Indy features, Mob Town, Sarah Q, Who's Jenna, Blowtorch,  Rob The Mob. He begins shooting Crabs in a Bucket with Jeremy Piven and Bruce Dern in the fall.

He can currently be seen in the first two seasons of the the hit HBO television series, The Deuce, in his gripping role as Matty "The Horse" Ianniello, and in Martin Scorcese’s latest film The Irishman.

Tony Picciotti made his name as a dancer, actor and producer, then as a filmmaker. The Camden High grad appeared in Broadway shows such as The Mouse Trap, Yes Means No, Can Can, No Strings and Little Me with Bob Fosse. He has also appeared in the movie version of How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, and The Pink Panther. 

Under his Jenny Lynn productions banner, he did West Side Story, Brigadoon, Gypsy, Carousel, Bells are Ringing, Little Me, and No Strings. He won Best Director for Walt Disney's High School Musical and Beauty and the Beast, as well as recitals for Absecon Academy of Performing Arts and for Encore Dance school.

His award-winning films - many playing at the Atlantic City Cinefest - included In All His Glory, Any Mothers Son, Talk to your Kids, Beautiful Cruel, The Devils Gambit, The 5th Door, Yours Anne, Beast, Didn’t Say Goodbye, The Honor, Illusionism, among others.

Returning Lifesaver Honoree

Blanche Baker received our Lifesaver Award in 2016.  She returned to the festival to screen Streetwrite, a musical she directed and wrote about freedom of speech. She returns again this year with another musical she directed and wrote, Make America Safe, which  tackles another social issue: guns.

Anyone who grew up in the 1980s – and many of us who didn’t - can recite Blanche’s lines as Ginny, the loopy bride to be, in Sixteen Candles by heart.

“I really love Rudy. He is totally enamored of me. I mean, I've had men who've loved me before, but not for six months in a row.”

In addition to Sixteen Candles, Blanche appeared in The Handmaid’s Tale with Robert Duvall, Raw Deal with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Kevin Bacon HBO film Taking Chance.  She won an Emmy for Holocaust with Meryl Streep. Daughter of actress, Carroll Baker, Blanche was part of the Yale Repertory Theatre. Her theatre roles include Steel Magnolias and Edward Albee’s Lolita with Donald Sutherland. Blanche is Senior Faculty at The New York Film Academy.