Our names: Nina Streich & Kelly DeVine
Our current festival: Global Peace Film Festival
Our titles: Executive Director (Nina) and Artistic Director (Kelly)
Other fests we've worked for: Newport International Film Festival, Nantucket Film Festival, NYC Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting (Nina); Tribeca Film Institute, Creative Capital, IFC Channel (Kelly)
Movies that best represent our personal tastes: Nina: American Dream (Barbara Kopple), The Parallax View (Alan Pakula), Day for Night (Francois Truffaut), Z (Costa-Gavras). Kelly: Love and Death (Woody Allen), Reds (Warren Beatty), Hail, Hail Rock and Roll (Taylor Hackford), The Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov).
When I'm not watching movies I like to: Nina - follow & talk politics and current events; relax with friends and a good glass of wine or vodka; take a long walk in a park or on a beach. Kelly - I love to work in my yard/garden, read fiction and non-fiction on a range of issues and topics (usually with a sociological or philosophical bent), I am news hound - one of the few people who actually watches C-Span!
A movie we recently programmed that we consider to be a great personal discovery: Two films spring to mind: Schnitzel Paradise and One Village, Same Ocean. Schnitzel Paradise is a romantic comedy from Holland featuring the unlikely love story between a poor Moroccan student and the wealthy Dutch woman whose relatives own the hotel in which they both work. It's a polished and familiar formula, but for our audiences who hear only the worst stories regarding the relations between Muslim immigrants in Europe it was revelatory - maybe, just maybe the immigrant situation in Europe was both more nuanced and more familiar than they had thought. One Village, Same Ocean, a doc about the conflict between the existing fisher culture and the proposal to attract cruise ships to the port, is what I like to call a "medium". With a running time of 44 minutes, it doesn't fit neatly into the screening schedules of the typical festival, but because GPFF was open to this non-typical length, we were able to program a film from a first-time director local to the state and to highlight an issue still very much in discussion that had not attracted statewide media attention prior to the festival showing.
When filmmakers ask us "What's different about your film festival?": Nina - It's more intimate for filmmakers than most other festivals. The GPFF is dedicated to programming films on issues of peace, justice and environmental sustainability and inspiring and encouraging its audiences to get involved with work on these issues. Kelly - Festivals can be a passive experience. It's our goal to harness the emotional power of film to engage our audiences and inspire them to take action in their daily lives. While many of the problems facing us can seem overwhelming, we work with local educators and organizations to offer practical actions individuals can take to improve their lives and the lives of those around them.
Our festival audience has come to expect: A diverse selection of films they won't find anywhere else.
We program the following categories of films: Narrative features, doc features, animated features, Narrative, doc and animated shorts. There's a Young Filmmakers category for filmmakers under the age of 21.
A recent trend we have noticed in submissions of which we approve: People are submitting earlier than they used to - many more films are coming in before the earlybird and regular deadlines, rather than the late deadlines. This is a good thing for the filmmakers who save money on submission fees!
If we could impart one thing to filmmakers about submitting to our festival, it would be: Pay attention to the festival's guidelines. Many filmmakers submit to festivals that don't program films like the ones they submit.
The submissions period for our next festival is: Submissions are open now. Regular deadline is May 1st, late deadline is May 21st and the WAB only extended late deadline is June 4th.
Filmmakers can contact us here: info@peacefilmfest.org
Twitter account): @peacefilmfest
Last words: Both of us are interested in leaving the world a little better than how we found it and we have found that most people feel the same way. The festival is about more than just the films, it's about creating an event for the community to engage, connect and share.
