This week we kick off the very first Gasparilla Film Festival presented by Wachovia and Wachovia Insurance Services. The film festival opens Wednesday night, February 28, 7 PM at the Tampa Theatre. The Opening Night film is Fay Grim, starring Jeff Goldblum and Parker Posey. The festival runs through the weekend, with A Night in Havana, our awards dinner and Wrap Party at the Cuban Club in Ybor City on Sunday, March 4. But, before I get into the schedule too much, I’d like to give you a little background on how it all came to be - and why it is important to Tampa and its citizens.

There were two visionaries on this project - Krista Soroka, our film commissioner and Eric Odum, our board president. They both saw the need for a film festival of this type in Tampa. They got together last spring, put a group of people together that consisted of area filmmakers and business people,  and formed the Tampa Film Institute - the nonprofit corporation that runs the Gasparilla Film Festival. Ultimately, the goal of the Tampa Film Institute is to make the film festival so financially successful that we can fund other film endeavors in the community throughout the year. 

Once the planning on this festival started last summer, things got into high gear quickly and we started to accept film submissions for consideration into our festival.  Once the films applied, they had to go through a screening process for acceptance into the festival. We first asked for members of the community - those that might like to see these films to help us out. We had 60 screeners apply and we chose 17 to be our first round of screeners. These people were very diverse in culture, sex and age. It was a great group. After screening more than 120 film submissions, our programming committee got them next. This committee consisted of filmmakers on our board. Each film was rated numerically on a variety of factors: story, acting, direction, production etc. These numerical values helped us to determine which films we chose to show during the festival.

In addition to those films that applied to the festival, we also went searching for quality films to invite to the festival. For example, we are showing Maroa, the Venezuelan Oscar submission. This is not a film that would "apply” to be screened here in Tampa, so we had to go searching for these films. This combined approach to acquiring films assures us a well-rounded, high quality group of movies to be shown.

In addition to movies, there are always celebrities. We are proud to have at our festival, Cristian de la Fuente, who was host of the Latin Grammys last week and probably the biggest film star in Latin America; Patrick Gallagher from "Night at the Museum" and "Sideways"; Courtnee Draper from our U.S. premiere, "The Immaculate Misconception" and David Coburn, the voice of Captain Planet.

There is also an industry component to the festival. On Saturday, March 3, two panel discussions will be held that are free and open to the public. One will be The Art and Business of Screenwriting with screenwriter Wayne Beach (Murder at 1600, The Art of War) and Ron Vignone, one of our filmmakers that will be present for the festival. The other discussion will be Motion Picture Distribution: Today and Tomorrow with Leslie V. Cohen, the Director of Programming from HBO, Bob Aaronson, Acquisitions and Distribution Executive from Red Envelope Entertainment/Netflix and Tim Gibbons, President of Level 2 Communications. 

And of course, there will be filmmakers. This is part of what makes the film festival experience different from just going to the movies. At the end of many of our films, the filmmakers will be there to talk about their movie and answer questions from the audience. This gives movie goers another dimension and insight to the film they just watched.

Why is this important to Tampa Bay? There are cultural and artistic impacts. Film reflects life and the movies we watch create dialogue about topics like politics, moral issues or family life. This adds to our experiences as citizens in this community. A cultural layer is added for those people considering moving to the area. It makes Tampa Bay a more vibrant destination when we have more artistic events going on. A film festival also has economic impact on two levels. When we have an event, people get out and go to local venues, generating revenue. The second is out of town tourism. There are film fans that travel from film festival to film festival. And, as this one grows, we hope to become known as a must-visit on the film festival circuit.

Finally, I would like to encourage everyone to come out and experience this event. There are parties every night where you can mingle with the filmmakers (one on the deck of SS American Victory Ship), over 40 movies to choose from - from filmmakers as young as 9 on Saturday, March 3 and even a free family film (E.T.) with activities at Hyde Park Village on Saturday night. For a complete schedule of events, just log onto www.gasparillafilmfestival.com and click on Festival and Events - or tickets - and click schedule. There you will see the entire festival schedule at a glance.

See you at the movies and the parties!