The Sea Cliff Arts Council is holding its first ever film festival over the course of a weekend in June. Including both narrative and documentary style films, the event will take place in multiple locations in the village. Filmmakers can submit work for consideration through May 15.
Mark Sobel and Katie Taber, the event’s co-directors, emphasized that this year’s festival on June 13 and 14 will be small to ensure smooth operations and gauge community interest. The festival comes as the arts council begins to add film-related activities to its programming.
Taber, a local filmmaker, and her husband, Mike, a television and film sound director, set up the arts council space at 86 Roslyn Ave. with a 4K projector to make it suitable for film showings. “Stranger Sister,” Taber’s own project was shown at the arts council building in September. The event was accompanied by a Q & A session with Taber.
“It just worked out amazing,” Sobel, the arts council’s producer-at-large, said. “We said, ‘No, we got to go from here. We got to do (the festival) now.’ We might have rushed it, but we didn’t want to wait.”
The team organizing the event took a trip to the Sundance Film Festival in Toronto in January, where Taber said the organizers had late-night conversations among themselves about how to bring similar energy to Sea Cliff. She credited arts council Chair Kathleen DiResta, Chief Creative Officer Noelle Fiallo-Evans and Chief Operating Artist Meaghan Travis with marketing, branding and organizational skills that have helped move the festival forward.
Roughly 10 films will be shown throughout the festival. Fiction and documentaries are being accepted. Taber said the organizers are hoping to feature an even split between the two, with some shorts and animated films. She also said the team is looking for local professionals in music composition, sound design, editing, graphic design, and directing who may be able to attend events.
“We have a lot of people in the area,” Taber said. “So, we’re interested in building some panels around that that might be of interest to everybody, but also particularly, maybe to young people who are interested in the industry.”
The current plan for the event includes the arts council building, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and Sea Cliff Elementary as the three main spaces for showing films. St. Luke’s hosted a showing of “A Sea Cliff Story,” a film by two North Shore High School graduates, nearly three years ago.
Other complementary events, like panels, may be held at businesses in town. Sobel said that helping Sea Cliff’s businesses is one goal of the festival. Nassau County Legislator Delia DeRiggi-Whitton secured a $10,000 Hotel Motel Occupancy Tax Fund grant for the arts council in January. The grant’s purpose is to support tourism and the arts.
“The grant itself applies to the collaboration between businesses in the village,” Sobel explained, “and how the businesses will benefit by what we do.”
Sobel and Taber will decide which films will be featured at the festival. They are also making calls to try to secure films currently on the festival circuit.
The theme is “films that make a difference.” Taber said they want to choose films that are of high quality and that she appreciates films that explore ideas related to community.
“There’s that old saying, ‘Keep Sea cliff weird,’ right?” Taber said. “And I think we do lean into that ethos. I think that Mark and I are looking for films that just have a slightly quirky personality about them.”
Sobel and Taber said they hope to bring people together. Taber said she thinks there is “nothing better” than viewing a film in a community setting and being able to have discussions right away, potentially with the filmmaker. Sobel echoed the idea of the importance of conversation.
“I think that’s what we’re looking for, more than anything,” Sobel said, “is people just getting into a room and talking to each other because sometimes, this country, we don’t do that anymore.”
Another goal, the co-directors said, is to bring exposure to smaller films that might not get wide distribution. Taber said that those films need audiences.
“They change hearts, and they change minds,” she said, “and they grow the cultural dialogue in ways that I think support the health of the community and the health of the nation.”
Those interested can sign up at SeaCliffArtsCouncil.org to get email alerts for film festival updates.
