Shoutout to the 12th Annual Chelsea Film Festival

Tonight, October 16, 2024, will be the big debut of the 12th edition of the Chelsea Film Festival in New York City, and it will run through October 20th.  I found out about the first festival when I lived in The City from the founder, Ingrid Jean-Baptiste. Before that, she’d been only an actor and not a festival organizer. But as a way to continue her work in the filmmaking world that she loved, she started this new festival with her mother Sonia as an alternative to the other, bigger festival in New York, Tribeca.

Her festival was set out to focus on many of the international and independent filmmakers that the better-known festival did not focus on. Ingrid knew that I’d had a bunch of interviewing experience, so she asked me to do a bunch of Q&A sessions for the first iteration of the program.  I accepted, had a great time, and met some great people in the filmmaking world. I came back for the 2nd year of the festival and did the same job before other events took me out of New York.

Fast forward to the 10th anniversary of the showcase, and I came back to NYC for the long weekend to host even more Q&A sessions and I got to see how much the event had grown over time.  I’m sorry that I couldn’t be in NYC this year for the show, but I’m sure that the fabulous collection of films that are usually there will be fab once again.

Hopefully, I’ll get to be there next year to speak with the filmmakers and actors from around the world once again and I’m looking forward to, not only the new crop of films from this year, but the ones that should crop up next year that I will hopefully get to see in person.  #Congrats