This op-ed ran in the Salem News on March 5, 2010.
The Salem Film Fest, which wrapped yesterday, has in a mere three years become one of the city’s favorite late-winter diversions.
Each year, it seems, more and more want to get into the act as sponsors, presenters, performers, hosts or cineasts. Over the past week, almost three dozen documentary films were screened, most of them at CinemaSalem, whose owner, Paul Van Ness, founded the event in 2008.
The festival adds vitality to the downtown at a time of year many are looking for an excuse to get out, walk around and do something. Last weekend’s programs featured a special screening at the Peabody Essex Museum — which just became a major sponsor of the festival — and a concert and after-party at Victoria Station on the waterfront. Directors and producers showed up to talk about their films, and attendees were encountered from as far away as North Carolina.
Interviewed for the festival’s blog, filmmaker Bari Pearlman (“Smile ‘Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story”) said, “I have found that it is really the smaller regional festivals — where it seems like the whole town knows about the festival and rallies to support it — that are the most rewarding to participate in as a filmmaker. Meeting local cinephiles who enthusiastically want to watch and absorb your work and talk to you about it afterwards, is priceless, and something that particularly we who make smaller independent films rarely get a chance to do.”
Asked for her impressions of Salem, Pearlman said she liked its walkability and seaside charm, adding, “You’ve got to love the witches.”
Local business people, some of whom donated rooms and meals for the participating filmmakers, are enthusiastic and no doubt look forward to the Film Fest’s return engagement in 2011.
