Short films from across the region will soon find their way onto the big screen at Stissing Center, where the Pine Plains Festival of Shorts returns Sunday, Nov. 1, for its second year, offering filmmakers of all experience levels an opportunity to share their work with a local audience.
Organizers have extended the submission deadline to Tuesday, Oct. 20, hoping to attract more films from Pine Plains residents, particularly students and first-time filmmakers.
Unlike competitive festivals, the event awards no prizes. Instead, it offers filmmakers an opportunity to screen their work before a local audience and discuss the creative process behind it.
“It’s really more meant to be a celebration of filmmaking on a local scale,” said Patrick Trettenero, the Stissing Center’s executive director.
The festival debuted last year with two evenings of screenings. This year, it has been condensed into a single afternoon, beginning at 3 p.m., although Trettenero said organizers may divide the program into two blocks depending on the number of submissions.
Films must be 15 minutes or shorter, and each screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with its creator. Submissions so far include comedies, documentaries, and dramatic narratives. Every entry will be reviewed, though not all are guaranteed a place in the program.
Trettenero said he especially hopes to encourage local high school students to submit their work, even if they have little equipment or filmmaking experience.
“I would love to celebrate that effort,” he said.
For Ann Ruark, a Pine Plains filmmaker who serves on the center’s film advisory board, the festival offers an opportunity to showcase the region’s growing creative community.
“There are so many local stories to tell and local landscapes to set them against,” Ruark said. “The Hudson Valley filmmaking community continues to grow and the opportunity to bring some of that work to screen as part of the short film fest at The Stissing Center just strengthens the connection to the area.”
Charles Wessler, an Oscar-winning filmmaker and Pine Plains resident who also serves on the advisory board, recalled making a short film at age 14 with his friend Griffin Dunne. The two had to learn how to operate a camera, choose 16-millimeter film stock, and persuade a Beverly Hilton Hotel coffee shop to let them film overnight.
The finished film lasted about 15 minutes, but the experience helped launch two filmmaking careers.
“It is really fun for me to see where filmmakers put there energy and imaginations,” Wessler said. “It is not always genius but it is always interesting to see it unfold.”
The festival is also part of a broader ambition to make cinema a regular feature of Stissing Center’s programming. With support from its film advisory board, the venue installed a new screen and projector last year.
The remaining obstacle is acoustics. Banning Hall’s reverberant interior, well suited to live music, can make dialogue difficult to understand. Trettenero said the center plans to explore acoustic improvements over the coming year to accommodate more feature films.
For now, the annual festival offers a way to build an audience for cinema while introducing neighbors to the filmmakers in their midst.
Filmmakers can submit a link to their work and a description of 100 words or fewer to programming@thestissingcenter.org by Oct. 20.
The Pine Plains Festival of Shorts takes place Nov. 1 at 3 p.m. at the Stissing Center, 2950 Church St. Tickets are $15, available at thestissingcenter.org.