Pittsburgh Film Festivals draw international talent

This year’s festivals offer a variety of independent films

By Michael Turk

Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Susie Singer Carter’s Oscar-qualified film “My Mom and the Girl” won the audience award for best short at the first annual Pittsburgh Shorts in 2017.

The JFilm Festival is entering its historic 25th year of honoring films and artists with a Jewish background.

And cult film star, Mink Stole, made an appearance at Reel Q’s Pittsburgh Underground Film Festival.

The wide assortment of film festivals in the Pittsburgh area this year range from local low-budget short film festivals to feature-length Hollywood-produced films and much more.

“We do get a lot of different filmmakers from all over the world to come to Pittsburgh,” Film Pittsburgh Office and Communications manager Candace Opper said. “We invite them to come and speak at the screening of their films.”

The Carnegie Screenwriters Script and Screen Festival has evolved from its previous years. Row House Cinemas will showcase some of Japan’s best work. The Kenny Ross Film Festival will have a total of $3,500 to award to the best films that enter their festival. And the 48 Hour Film Festival gives local filmmakers two days to create and shoot films.

Pittsburgh Shorts Film Festival

“This would be a great place to shoot,” was “My Mom and the Girl” producer Don Priess’s first impression of Pittsburgh.

Susie Singer Carter produced, directed and wrote her short film “My Mom and the Girl,” but was not able to attend the Pittsburgh Shorts Festival in 2017 due to another project she was working on.

(Link to trailer https://vimeo.com/183072790)

“I couldn’t attend so I missed it but I feel like I lived through it through Don,” Singer Carter said.

With Singer Carter not being able to attend, Priess decided to make his first trip to Pittsburgh to represent the film at the festival.

While Priess was impressed with the town, he became even more impressed with the festival which was just in its first year. With a festival being in its first year, there tends to be issues. Priess was surprised to find that this was not the case with Pittsburgh Shorts. He and other filmmakers were impressed with how professional it was and how they cared about the filmmaker.

“My Mom and the Girl” went on to win the audience award for best short at Pittsburgh Shorts and later that film would go on to reach Oscar qualifications.

“As a filmmaker, that is one of the most satisfying awards to win,” Priess said about winning the audience choice award. “Who else are you making films for but the audience?”

Pittsburgh Shorts is one of three programs of Film Pittsburgh and will be held in Pittsburgh’s Downtown Cultural District sometime in early November with dates and times to be announced at a later date.

JFilm Festival

The JFilm Festival is another program from Film Pittsburgh and is entering its 25th year in 2018. It is an eleven day event full of Jewish-themed films from around the world. It will be held from Apr. 26 and run until May 6 in Squirrel Hill. At the festival, you will be able to watch films, listen to guest speakers and be visited by filmmakers. The festival receives over 100 submissions of Jewish-themed films and draws the biggest crowd of all three of the Film Pittsburgh Festivals.

“It’s older and has a large fan base here in Pittsburgh,” Film Pittsburgh Office and Communications manager Candace Opper said about why JFilm draws the biggest crowd.

ReelAbilities

The third festival that Film Pittsburgh operates is ReelAbilities which will be held sometime in late September. ReelAbilities is a National Festival out of New York and Opper’s team out of Film Pittsburgh produce the Pittsburgh chapter of the festival. The festival is entering its sixth year and it shows films that are made by, or about, people with real disabilities.

“We do get a lot of filmmakers from all over the world that do come to Pittsburgh,” Opper said. “We also ask people to come and speak after the screenings of their films and have Q&A for the audience.”

Reel Q Film Festival

The Pittsburgh Lesbian and Gay Film Society will present the 33rd annual Reel Q Film Festival Oct. 11 through Oct. 14 at the Harris Theater.

The festival receives close to 200 submissions each year from all over the world. They receive entries for short films, feature films and documentaries. The films are then screened for the board and they pick which ones they want to screen for the festival.

“We usually show anywhere between 16 and 20 films,” President Jaime Tracktenberg said. “We try to show the best films.”

Despite receiving close to 200 submissions, Tracktenberg still goes out to other festivals and does her research to try and get the best films from other festivals.

Pittsburgh Underground Film Festival (PUFF)

The Pittsburgh Lesbian and Gay Film Society also runs another festival called the Pittsburgh Underground Film Festival (PUFF) which already took place on April 20 at the Regent Square Theater.

PUFF, which just completed its second year, featured an appearance by a famous drag queen from San Francisco named Peaches Christ. Mink Stole, who grew in popularity through John Waters’s films, also made an appearance alongside Peaches Christ at PUFF.

Together the duo shared stories with the audience, answered fan questions and even entertained them with a live song.

Carnegie Screenwriters Script and Screenwriter’s Film Festival

Wendy Grube is the Director of the Carnegie Screenwriters Script and Screen Film Festival. This is the second year of the event. It came out of Grube’s Carnegie screenwriters group. It was a local non-profit group that started mostly as writers getting together to work and critique each other’s scripts. Over the years, it began to evolve into a filmmakers group with actors, directors and producers. The discussion of starting a script competition was bounced around for years but it never came about. When it became serious about having a festival, many of the group members were already producing short films. So they decided to combine both script and short film submissions into one festival.

“We’re very happy with what we had submission-wise from all over the country and from other parts of the globe we didn’t even think had ever heard of us,” Grube said following the festivals successful first run in 2017.

The festival is a two day event which will be held at the Tull Family Theater in Sewickley on Aug. 25 and 26. The first day acts as a filmmakers reception. That day will consist of seated readings of award-winning short scripts by professional actors. The second day will consist of screenings from 11 a.m until 4 p.m. There is no set price for tickets yet. Expect it to be the same price as last year’s, which was $15 for the full day.

Pittsburgh Uncut Film Festival

There are also local filmmakers who like to enter their work into local festivals to help promote their films. At least that is the case for local actor David Ogrodowski, who has 53 film credits to his name.

Ogrodowski is hosting the Pittsburgh Uncut Film Festival from May 22 to the 24. It is a three night event that will only last about 90 minutes each evening. The event will consist of screenings of short films that are about eight minutes or less and they are locally produced in Pittsburgh with almost no budget.

The event will take place at the Parkway Theater in McKees Rocks. You can find them on Facebook @PGHUNCUTFEST

Haunted Oaks Film Festival

Aside from being involved with the Pittsburgh Uncut Film Festival, Ogrodowski is no stranger to other local festivals, having picked up multiple best actor nominations and wins at other local festivals.

Ogrodowski received a best actor nomination for his role as Poe in his short film, “The Raven” back in 2015 at the Haunted Oaks Film Festival

(Link to The Raven https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fvq212oGCo )

The Haunted Oaks Film Festival, which has been running for three years now, is a festival that honors locally-made, short horror films made in the Pittsburgh area. It is held at the Oaks Theater and it is a one night event full of screenings.

There is no set date or time for the 2018 event but expect it to be held around early October.

(Time Out starring Ogrodowski https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwLOENgZ9hw&t=144s )

48-Hour Film Project

The Pittsburgh 48-Hour Film Project is exactly as advertised. There are about 45 teams of local filmmakers and they are assembled and given 48 hours to make a film. Then all of the films are screened and a winner is chosen. The winner will be screened at Filmapalooza in 2019 at compete for a chance to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival 2019.

Another local filmmaker, PJ Gaynard, is a fan of competing in the 48-Hour Film Project claiming it is the most active film festival in the Pittsburgh area for filmmakers.

(Link to The Decionist an award-winning 48-Hour Film Project by Gaynard https://youtu.be/Be0MSsHPgp4)

“You can’t talk about film festivals without talking about the 48 hour film project,” Gaynard said.

There is no set date for the festival but it will be held sometime in mid-July.

Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival

Gaynard has also submitted his work to the Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival in the past which is a three-day event honoring independent Pittsburgh films.

“They put on a nice festival,” Gaynard said who submitted his short film “How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.”

(Link to film https://youtu.be/e5T5qq0aJPk)

The festival is currently opening a call for entries. The categories consist of Best Feature Narrative, Best Feature Documentary, Best Short Narrative, Best Short Documentary, Best Music Video, Best Webisode, Best Animation, Best Short Script and Best Feature Script.

The event will be held June 22 through the 24 at the Fr. Ryan Arts Center in McKees Rocks.

The Kenny Ross Film Festival

On May 19, you can catch The Kenny Ross Film Festival which will be airing on Moon Community Access Television (MCA-TV). The festival is back for its seventh year hosting over 60 local filmmakers.

The festival is currently open to submissions until May 1. Thanks to the donations of local Moon Township companies, about $3,500 will be awarded to winners. The prize money for each category varies. For the categories Best Documentary (Feature Length) and Narrative (Feature Length), the winner will receive $400. For the categories Best Feature Film and Short Film, the winners will receive $1,000.

“We love being able to screen these films on TV so they can be seen by more people,” the Director of Community Programming for MCA-TV Allison Eastham said.

Pittsburgh Japanese Film Festival

The longest festival, in terms of days, in Pittsburgh is the Pittsburgh Japanese Film Festival. It is a 14-day event which already took place from April 6 through the 19. The third annual festival held by Row House Cinemas showcased Japan’s best films in different genres reflecting what Japanese cinemas has to offer.

The festival opened with the film “Neko Atsume House” and continued to show rich historical Japanese films such as one of their most popular films of all-time “Your Name.” Despite the festival already taken place, one can count on the festival coming back for a fourth run in 2019.

Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival

Similar to the Japanese Film Festival showcasing its culture, the Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival reflects on culture films from places such as Japan, Turkey, China, India, South Korea, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran and the Philippines.

The Silk Screen is a week long festival that will be taking place from Sep. 14 through the 24 in 2018. The festival will celebrate the year’s best Asian films and Asian American filmmakers. The event will showcase about 30 feature length films from 14 countries.

With people from all over the world attending the various amounts of festivals in Pittsburgh, it has helped shine a bright light on the steel city for filmmakers and fans.

“A lot of festivals don’t necessarily care about the filmmaker. They care about celebrities or putting on a show but in Pittsburgh it was quite the opposite,” Priess said. “I loved Pittsburgh, I thought it was a very cool town.”

Michael Turk is currently a student at Point Park University going for his Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication. He is expected to graduate in April 2019. After graduation, Michael aspires to work in the world of sports communication. For more information or questions, you can contact him at mjturk21@gmail.com