Festival growth boosts venues

Now in its 19th year, the Rhode Island International Film Festival this week is expected to top attendance from past years, with arts venues, hotels and restaurants among the beneficiaries, promoters and business managers say.

Attendance for 265 films this year could reach 20,000 between Aug. 4 and Aug. 9, and has increased steadily from 15,000 five years ago, said George T. Marshall, the festival’s executive director and CEO. The festival is an Oscar qualifier in short and short-documentary categories and therefore popular with film insiders, he said.

Marshall is founder and executive director of the Flickers Arts Collaborative, a nonprofit that helps shape the festival.

Promoters and hosts are hoping the growing support for the festival will continue to lead to new patrons of participating venues ranging from the Providence Performing Arts Center and the Veterans Memorial Auditorium to the Jamestown Arts Center.

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The festival “enhances our stature on an international level,” said PPAC General Manager Alan Chille. “People come to know PPAC. It introduces new audiences to our building.”

Jamestown Arts Center Executive Director Lisa Utman Randall agreed. The center is hosting the screening of “Monty Python: the Meaning of Live,” on Aug. 5.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase in the audience specific to the films throughout the year,” Randall said, with growth from 15 to 20 people for each screening a few years ago to 60 to 80 people for each screening today. The festival screenings mirror that increase, added Jocelyn Donaghue, chairperson of the center’s film committee.

“People are just craving [short films],” Donaghue said.

Hotel Providence for the second year will host a daily lounge for filmmakers in its courtyard, A/Garden, said Marketing Manager Tricia Carter, and since opening in 2005 has seen an influx of guests because of the festival.

“We’ve been benefiting from the festival from day one, just having people coming into the city to check out the screenings and workshops,” she said.

Four more venues, totaling 16, are hosting films this year compared to last year, including the Jane Pickens Theaters and for the first time the Greenwich Odeum, a theater in East Greenwich, Marshall said.

Restaurants and other hotels from Providence to Jamestown also enjoy the spillover from festival patronage.

Steve Feinberg, executive director of the R.I. Film & Television Office, noted a new production to be filmed entirely in Rhode Island will be named on opening night, bringing with it about 150 jobs.

Kristen Adamo, vice president of marketing and communications for the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the festival and local film productions help sell the Ocean State.

“When you have people sitting in a darkened movie theater seeing Providence and Rhode Island portrayed in positive way on the silver screen, I think that influences their travel decisions,” she said. •

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