Page 20
December 2002
The AC Phoenix
RIVERRUN INTERNATIONAL
FILM FESTIVAL TO MOVE TO
WINSTON-SALEM
North Carolina School of the Arts To Have Screenings at Stevens
Center and School of Filmmaking
WINSTON-SALEM - The RiverRun International Film Festival will be held in
Winston-Salem next April 24-27, hosted by the North Carolina School of the Arts
and the city of Winston-Salem. Screenings will be held at the NCSA School of
Filmmaking on campus and at the School’s Stevens Center downtown.
RiverRun organizers are planning more than the requisite film screenings,
however. There will be a strong educational component, with fiimrnaking
workshops and panel discussions.
“We want it to be a place for artists and professionals in the film industry to
come together,” said Gennaro “Gene” D’Cnofrio, executive director of the festival.
“We want to build a creative think tank for filmmakers, both professional and
student.
“What’s more, we want to bring the professionals here to stimulate the movie
industry in the area.”
Festival organizers are also planning several activities in downtown Winston-
Salem, including a block party/street festival, pre- and post-screening parties, and
a gala event, all of which they hope will attract film-lovers across the state and
beyond.
“We want RiverRun to be what Sundance was in the early days,” said Dale Pollock,
dean of the NCSA School of Filmmaking and the festival’s artistic director.
It was Pollock who convinced D’Cnofrio to bring the festival to Winston-Salem.
A Parsons-trained interior designer, D’Cnofrio changed to set design for theatre
and then directing theatre, where his son, Vincent - now star of TV’s “Law & Crder:
Criminal Intent” - got his start. D’Cnofrio was doing training videos for a furniture
company when he discovered North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Always a
film enthusiast, he founded RiverRun four years ago in Asheville, and, with the
support of Brevard College, attracted filmmakers from California to Canada. But
the festival also spotlighted North Carolina-made films, such as MCRNING.
“RiverRun is an established festival with a good reputation,” said Pollock, a
former Flollywood producer whose 1991 film CRCCKED FIEARTS starred Vincent
D’Cnofrio.
Pollock said he hopes to see the festival encourage independent and regional
filmmaking. That would be in keeping with the spirit of the NCSA School of
Filmmaking, which was founded on the Southern storytelling tradition.
Pollock anticipates accepting 18 films for competition - feature-length and
short; animated, documentary and fiction; foreign and domestic. “We want a mix
of films, genres and nationalities,” he said. There will also be a category for
student works. In addition, the festival will invite two or three exceptional films from
With Wishes Warm And Bright
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other festivals for special screenings. And there will be a major film premiere.
While the state has other film festivals, what is unique about RiverRun is that it
will be in partnership with Winston-Salem and the North Carolina School of the
Arts, “It is fitting that the state’s premier arts conservatory and one of the country’s
finest film schools would host a major film festival,” said NCSA Chancellor Wade
Flobgood. “We are looking fonward to our new association with RiverRun, and hope
to see it continue for,many years.”
Stacie Brenner, an events planner who had great success with Rock the Block
and Kickin’ the Downtown Blues in Winston-Salem, has been hired to market
RiverRun. Brenner hopes to triple the audience, which was about 1,500 in
Asheville, to at least 3,000 to 5,000 people attending screenings, with perhaps a
total of 20,000 involved in the entire festival.
Tickets to screenings will be reasonably priced: $5 per screening, or books of
10 screenings for $35. The premiere film and gala will be priced separately. Passes
will also be offered, and there will be discount prices for students and senior
citizens.
The RiverRun International Film Festival will be Accepting entries through March
1. For more information, call 336-831-1914, or visit the website at
www.riverrunfilm.com. The RiverRun office is located at 8 W. Third St., Suite Ml,
Winston-Salem, NC 27101.
An arts conservatory of international renown, the North Carolina School of the
Arts was the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation.
Established by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, NCSA became part of the
University of North Carolina in 1972. More than 1,000 students from middle school
through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools:
Dance, Design & Production {including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking,
and Music.
The NCSA School of Filmmaking offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts and College Arts
Diploma in screenwriting, directing, editing and sound, producing, cinematography,
and production design. For more information, visit the School’s website at
www.ncarts.edu.
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