FILM: Fest looks to increase region’s exposure

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January 9, 2008

By Paul Lane/lanep@gnnewspaper.com The Niagara Gazette Wed Jan 09, 2008, 03:54 PM EST

Getting ready for its second year, the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival looks to put a bit more “Niagara” into the week-long festivities in March.

Festival organizers are widening the event’s reach in Niagara County, with North Tonawanda’s Riviera Theatre and Niagara University in Lewiston playing more of a role in 2008.

The Riviera, which hosted one day of screenings in 2007, will host four days March 24-27. Having been pleased with how last year’s festival went, the Riviera will be at organizers’ disposal this time, said Frank Cannata, the theater’s executive director.

“Last year, it brought in several people who’d never been to the Riv before,” said Cannata, who cited numerous summer patrons who said they were returning after coming for the first time to the festival. “It helped us to gain new audiences.”

NU, meanwhile, looks to host film-related workshops during that week. Mark Barner, chairman of NU’s communications department, said he’d been in talks with festival founder Bill Cowell some time ago to bring events there, but the details are yet to be worked out.

Cowell, who starred in and wrote the locally based “The Maize” and its sequel, wants to get his home county more involved so that it can benefit in what he hopes is the continued growth of the region’s arts community. Some 10,000 patrons came to last year’s festival, he said, with hopes to bring in 18,000 viewers this year.

“We want to grow Buffalo as a cultural society,” he said.

Last year’s festival saw 102 entries screened at the Riviera, University at Buffalo and Market Arcade Film and Arts Centre in Buffalo. More than 220 entries have been received to date this year with the deadline coming next week, he said. A committee will then pare those down to a manageable amount.

This year’s festival will center around “The Natural,” the Robert Redford baseball movie that was shot in Buffalo 25 years ago. Several tie-ins are in the works, Cowell said, including workshops with cast and crew and other appearances by the film’s stars.

Other guest appearances are being negotiated, Cowell said, including “Child’s Play” director Tom Holland and “Night of the Living Dead” writer/director George Romero, with final plans to be announced in the coming weeks. Appearances such as these, combined with a stop by actor Richard Dreyfuss, made 2007’s festival better than Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown thought it would be.

“I was a little skeptical at first,” he said during a recent news conference. “It cemented (Buffalo’s) image as a good city for the arts.”

Bringing Hollywood to Western New York benefits prospective actors and crew members as well as the general population, Cowell said. He hopes the festival will continue the growth achieved on both fronts.

“You get to meet new people,” said Cowell, who also runs North Tonawanda-based Captures Entertainment. “You get to know a lot about the people who are in big films. It’s a heads-up on how it works. The industry’s a hard place to get in.”

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