When I first received word about the First Time Fest, a new film festival that would highlight the work of directors making their debut films, I thought it would be a small, low-key festival. After all, 2013 would be the inaugural year, so how big could it really be?
As it turns out, First Time Fest co-founders Johanna Bennett and Mandy Ward and Director of Programming David Schwartz don’t know the meaning of “starting small.”
After a great four days packed full of screenings, panels, and parties, the festival concluded with a closing night gala at the prestigious Players Club in New York City. The gala was hosted by actress Ellen Burstyn, and many of the awards were presented by actor Anthony Rapp (who also started in Junction, my favorite film of the festival). Twelve films screened as part of the competition, in which the filmmakers were competing for a guaranteed distribution in one major U.S. city (as host Burstyn said, “not Toledo, Ohio”). The big winner was Sal, an Argentinian western written and directed by Diego Rougier. Sal was one of the few films I actually didn’t get to see at the festival (I was conducting an interview that will be posted soon during the screening), but I’ll soon be able to have a full review of it ahead of its release.
Actor Anthony Rapp presenting awards
Of course, being debut films some films in the competition were better than others. Keep in mind that not every director knocks it out of the park with his or her first film like John Huston, whose first directorial effort was the amazing The Maltese Falcon. Huston’s work was celebrated at the festival with the presentation of the John Huston Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinema at the closing gala. None other than Martin Scorsese, who gets many people’s votes as greatest living director, presented the award to another great filmmaker, Brooklyn’s own Darren Aronofsky. Aronofsky’s debut film, Pi, was one of the many films celebrated in the festival’s “First Exposure” series, which showed the debut films of famous directors (including Sofia Coppola‘s The Virgin Suicides and Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s Jack Goes Boating, with both directors doing Q&A sessions after their films were screened). Aronofsky said he was not only honored to receive the award from Scorsese, but honored that members of John Huston’s family, including grandson (and Boardwalk Empire star) Jack Huston, were in attendance.
Darren Aronofsky
Appropriately, Burstyn pointed out that she has connections with both Scorsese and Aronofsky. In fact, she said that her two best decisions in her career were selecting Scorsese to direct Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (for which she won an Oscar) and agreeing to star in Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream.
Though the gala was a lot of fun — and I was very honored to be able to attend — the best part of the festival was meeting the filmmakers who created the films in the competition. Their level of excitement and passion for their work is something you won’t find in a director who has many films under his or her belt. It became pretty clear that even though they were in competition with each other a sort-of camaraderie broke out between them since they all knew how hard they worked to achieve their dreams of making a movie. It must have felt wonderful for them to all be recognized for their first efforts.
Though New York City has many film festivals — including the Tribeca Film Festival and the New York Film Festival, the two heavyweights — the First Time Fest fills a niche that is sorely needed in promoting the work of future directing and acting stars. The future of filmmaking needs all the help it can get, and the fact that there is a festival that promotes it in one of the biggest filmmaking cities in the world is a wonderful way to support the future.
I’m already anticipating the great films I’ll be seeing at the second First Time Fest next year, but I’ll be especially proud that I will be able to say that I was able to cover these wonderful festival from the very first year. Seeing how much of a success it was this year, I doubt I will be alone in this sentiment!
Special thanks to Springer Associates PR for inviting Movie Buzzers to cover the First Time Fest!
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