Carrboro Film Festival draws 300 attendees

The beige curtains of Century Hall in Carrboro were drawn tight this weekend, transforming the ballroom into a makeshift movie theater for the ninth annual Carrboro Film Festival.

The two-day event featured 46 films from around the world, ranging from comedy and animation to documentary and horror.

The festival was founded in 2006 by film producer Nic Beery and graphic artist Jackie Helvey, who strive to feature a variety of films.

“We want a rollercoaster ride of a festival. One five-minute film will be an animation; the next will be a serious documentary about fracking,” Beery said.

The weekend was divided into seven two-hour film blocks. Beery said each block brings in anywhere from 100 to 300 attendees.

Festivalgoers also participated in filmmaking workshops and got to meet some of the filmmakers, including this year’s invited filmmaker, UNC graduate Jon Kasbe.

Kasbe said, from a filmmaker’s perspective, that the Carrboro Film Festival has a sense of community that other festivals lack.

“Film festivals can be lonely places, especially when you just have one short in them that is among hundreds of others,” he said. “It’s easy to go to them and not even be seen. But this is super intimate and special.”

That intimate feeling is also what Carrboro resident David Barber enjoys. Barber said his favorite part of the festival is getting to see some of the locally produced movies.

“When you see the Hollywood stuff, it’s sort of like this far away thing that those people do with that money in those places,” he said. “This is the place where you see films that are made by people that you see every day walking around.”

One of the locally produced films in this year’s lineup was “Disengaged,” a short post-apocalyptic horror film that was shot in Wake Forest. Alena Koch, an actress in the film, said sitting in the audience is the cherry on top.

“When you get to see it live in front of an audience, you get to see where people laugh, where people cry, where they cringe, where they gasp,” she said. “You get to actually see the feelings that your work evokes.”

Ish Abdelkhalek, the cinematographer for “Disengaged,” said he’s seen the festival grow tremendously over the past nine years.

“I used to come here when it was a one-day, one-and-done deal and it was only for people who had ever stepped foot in Orange County. Now it’s grown, and they have all this international film,” he said. “It’s a really great way to show us local filmmakers what’s happening in the rest of the world.”

Beery said the festival has enjoyed success thanks to its tradition of finding both local and international stories to share.

“Going to Carrboro Film Festival is where you see independent, edgy and incredible films that you will not see at a multiplex,” he said. “These are films that aren’t driven by star power; the story is the star.”

arts@dailytarheel.com