Cleveland International Film Festival | |
---|---|
Status | active |
Genre | film festival |
Frequency | Annually |
Venue | Playhouse Square |
Location(s) | Cleveland |
Years active | 48 |
Inaugurated | April 13, 1977 |
Founder | Jonathan Forman |
Most recent | April 3–21, 2024 |
Leader | Marcie Goodman |
Website | www |
The Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) is an annual film festival based in Cleveland, Ohio. CIFF is the largest film festival in Ohio and among the longest-running in the United States. [1] The festival is held at Playhouse Square, the largest performing arts center in the United States outside of New York City. [2]
Throughout its history, CIFF has experienced tremendous growth. Its 48th festival in 2024 included an in-person and virtual component with 363 films from 60 countries. [3] CIFF is also an Academy Award qualifying festival. [4]
Not to be confused with the Cleveland Film Festival which ran from 1948 to 1956 and honored sponsored films with "Oscars,", [5] [6] the CIFF had its inaugural festival in 1977 with seven feature films over eight weeks at the Cedar Lee Theatre in Cleveland Heights. [7] In 1991, the festival relocated to Tower City Cinemas in Downtown Cleveland. [7] [8] At points during its nearly five-decade run, the festival has also put on additional programming and events at other local venues, including the Akron Art Museum, the Akron-Summit County Public Library, the Apollo Theatre in Oberlin, the Capitol Theatre on Cleveland's west side, and Shaker Cinemas on Shaker Square. [7] [8]
After 30 years at Tower City Cinemas, CIFF announced that it would move to Playhouse Square ahead of the 2021 festival. [7] Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the 44th festival, its last at Tower City Cinemas, was canceled. The festival moved to a digital streaming platform for the first time in its history over two weeks at the end of April 2020. [9] For the 45th festival, with the pandemic continuing through 2020 into 2021, the festival opted to continue with a digital festival dubbed CIFF45 Streams. [10] 2022 was the festival's first time at Playhouse Square during CIFF46.
Recently, the festival has focused on films that dwell on social issues, including feminism, environmentalism, Jewish and Israeli issues, and LGBT issues. [11] The festival also has a focus on family-friendly films and films from Central and Eastern Europe. [11] [12]
The Cleveland International Film Festival is sometimes confused with an earlier film festival in Cleveland with a similar name—the 1948 to 1956 Cleveland Film Festival—the first film festival in the country to honor sponsored films in all categories. [13]
The festival offers multiple awards and honors to its films and filmmakers, including for Best Documentary and for Best Central and Eastern European film. [12] In 2006, the festival introduced The Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Film Competition, which honors films focused on social justice and activism and is sponsored by The George Gund Foundation in honor of Greg Gund, who died in a plane crash in 2005. [14] Another major award is the Roxanne T. Mueller Audience Choice Award for Best Film, which has been awarded annually since 1988 and is named in honor of the late Roxanne Mueller, who was a film advocate and film critic for The Plain Dealer . [15]
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States maritime border and lies approximately 60 mi (97 km) west of Pennsylvania. Cleveland is the most populous city on Lake Erie, the second-most populous city in Ohio, and the 54th-most populous city in the U.S. with a population of 372,624 in 2020. The city anchors the Cleveland metropolitan area, the 33rd-largest in the U.S. at 2.18 million residents, as well as the larger Cleveland–Akron–Canton combined statistical area with 3.63 million residents.
A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors.
The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Awards, is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The ceremonies were initially held at the flagship Odeon Cinema in Leicester Square in London, before being held at the Royal Opera House from 2007 to 2016. From 2017 to 2022, the ceremony was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London before moving to the Royal Festival Hall for the 2023 ceremony. The statue awarded to recipients depicts a theatrical mask.
The Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) is a film festival held annually in Calgary, Alberta, in late September and early October.
Playhouse Square is a theater district in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is the largest performing arts center in the US outside of New York City. Constructed in a span of 19 months in the early 1920s, the theaters became a major entertainment hub for the city for much of the 20th century. However, by the late 1960s, the district had fallen into decline and its theaters had closed down. In the 1970s, the district was revived through a grassroots effort that helped usher in a new era of downtown revitalization. For this reason, the revival of Playhouse Square is often locally referred to as being "one of the top ten successes in Cleveland history."
The Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou is a film festival in Burkina Faso, held biennially in Ouagadougou, where the organization is based. It accepts for competition only films by African filmmakers and chiefly produced in Africa. FESPACO is scheduled in March every second year, two weeks after the last Saturday of February. Its opening night is held in the Stade du 4-Août, the national stadium.
Crystal Globe is the main award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, first given in the Czech Republic city of Karlovy Vary in 1948.
The San Francisco International Film Festival, organized by SFFILM, is held each spring for two weeks, presenting around 200 films from over 50 countries. The festival highlights current trends in international film and video production with an emphasis on work that has not yet secured U.S. distribution. In 2009, it served around 82,000 patrons, with screenings held in San Francisco and Berkeley.
The Cairo International Film Festival is an annual internationally accredited film festival held in Cairo Opera House. It was established in 1976 and has taken place every year since its inception, except for 2011 and 2013, when it was cancelled due to budget limitations and political instability. It is the only international competitive feature film festival recognized by the FIAPF in the Arab world and Africa, as well as the oldest in this category.
Palm Springs International Film Festival is a film festival held in Palm Springs, California. Originally promoted by Mayor Sonny Bono and then sponsored by Nortel, it started in 1989 and is held annually in January. It is run by the Palm Springs International Film Society, which also runs the Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films (ShortFest), a festival of short films and film market in June.
The International Tournée of Animation was an annual touring program of alternative animated films that started in 1965 as The First Festival of Animated Film with each selected and assembled from films from many countries around the world and which existed from the 1970s to the 1980s-90s.
Authentic Films is a film production company based in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. It was founded and is owned by Kate O'Neil and Kevin Kerwin. O'Neil is the producer and Kerwin, who has a master's degree in film from Columbia University, is the director. The company creates the trailers for the Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF).
Catherine Gund is an American producer, director, and writer who founded Aubin Pictures in 1996.
The 11th Chennai International Film Festival took place in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India from 12 to 19 December 2013. The event was organised by the Indo Cine Appreciation Foundation (ICAF) with support from the Government of Tamil Nadu. The festival was curated by actress-director Suhasini Maniratnam and inaugurated by Kamal Haasan and Aamir Khan. The Japanese drama Like Father, Like Son marked the beginning of the fest.
Life Feels Good is a 2013 Polish drama film directed by Maciej Pieprzyca.
Bad Actress is a 2011 American independent feature film, directed by Robert Lee King, written by David Michael Barrett, produced by Lisa Schahet, and starring Beth Broderick as has-been TV star Alyssa Rampart-Pillage. The picture had its world premiere at the Miami International Film Festival in March, 2011.
RiverBlue is a 2017 documentary film that chronicles a three-year, around-the-world river journey by paddler and conservationist Mark Angelo during which he uncovered and documented the pollution impacts of the global fashion industry. The explores the fashion sector, from denim to leather to fast fashion, as one of the world's most polluting industries.
Maria Brendle is a German-Swiss film director and screenwriter based in Zurich. In 2020, she wrote and directed the film Ala Kachuu – Take and Run for which she received a nomination for the Best Live Action Short Film at the 94th Academy Awards.Her debut feature film, Frida's Fall, premiered at the 20th Zurich Film Festival.
Coralie Fargeat is a French filmmaker. She gained recognition with her 2017 debut feature film Revenge, for which she received awards from several independent film festivals. This was followed by her second feature, The Substance (2024), a satirical body horror film, which won her the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay, as well as two Golden Globe nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay.
Nicholas Bruckman is an American documentary filmmaker. He is best known for his work on the documentaries La Americana and Not Going Quietly.
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