GMWS- Films and Festivals

This week I am in Wilmington, NC for the Cucalorus Film Festival. I am so grateful to be living in a town that has a film festival because my hometown does not. This is my first time attending as a filmmaker and I intend to take full advantage!

Winston Salem is fortunate to have the The River Run International Film Festival- April 4-13, 2014

One of the premiere film festivals in the southeastern United States. I had the opportunity to attend the 2012 festival in my first year. It covers a lot of ground in Winston Salem, from downtown to UNCSA to Reynolda House. 

By 2013 I was volunteering. It was a very long festival but full of great films, short & feature length, including Mud Directed by Jeff Nichols. We screened the film at the Stevens Center downtown, which wasn't made for films but was still really beautiful.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dale Polluck, a professor and previous Dean of the film school at UNCSA. I had one major question I wanted clarified because for the last 2 years I've seen Dale at every event for RR. 

Can you explain your involvement with Riverarun a Film Festival?

"I first brought RiverRun to Winston-Salem in 2002. I arranged for the festival, which had been started in Brevard, NC in 1998, to move to Winston-Salem, raised the money to mount the first festival, and ended up running it myself when we had to let the festival's founder go. I was the Executive Director of the festival for the first five years, now I am the only Emeritus Board member on the RiverRun Board of Directors. I no longer have a direct role in the programming of the festival, but I often do the major Q&A sessions with guest filmmakers and award recipients, and I also introduce classic and foreign films RiverRun screens. I also make at least a few contributions to the program booklet."

Films filmed in Winston-Salem

In 2012 I interned on the independent feature film, "Goodbye To All That" starring Paul Sneider 

This was such a fun experience. This post I blogged about applying and how excited I was. I was only an on set production assistant, but I got to see how smoothly a feature film can go (with planning). In the "real world" you plan it out in pre-production.

What a sweet guy!

The producer, Summer Shelton is a UNCSA alumni who brought this film to Winston Salem (which I totally intend to do if we renew our film incentive in 2015.) But don't even let me get started. 

Filmed in Winston Salem, NC:

• The Bedroom Window (1987) 
• Mr. Destiny (1990)
• Eddie (1996)
• The Lottery (1996, made-for-television adaptation of Shirley Jackson's short story)
• George Washington (2000) (UNCSA alumni- David Gordon Green)
• A Union in Wait (2001, documentary)
• Junebug (2005) (written by Angus MacLachlan who lives in Winston Salem)
• Lost Stallions: The Journey Home (2008)
• Goodbye Solo (2008)
• Leatherheads (2008) directed by George Clooney
• Eyeborgs (2009) directed by Richard Clabaugh who taught At UNCSA for a brief time, stars a Dale Gerard who teaches stunt work at our drama school
• You Are Here (2013) many UNCSA interns, some of it shot on our campus on a sound stage.