US film director Garen Daly, who runs the Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival and appears regularly on TV and radio in the USA was announced today as the new director for the Newcastle Film Festival which will debut from the 29th March till 1st April 2018.
Garen Daly said “Most of us are incredibly visually literate, we know what’s good and what’s bad, we have that intuition and we all love to be armchair film critics and this is a chance to come out and be right in the action. You see a lot of really good film makers out there who know what they are doing, they’re the future. Hollywood film makers are still in a rut, they make the same old comic book movies. When you meet a film festival audience and you connect, you feel so good. It’s an emotionally raw experience.”
The film festival will span a wide range of genres including horror, documentaries, animation, North East schools, sport, music videos, short films and more. Entrants to the festival have until the 31st of October to submit their films. Late entries have until the 20th November 2017.
Ambassador of the Newcastle Film Festival, Hollywood actress Caroline Goodall, who has starred in the Schindler’s List, Princess Diaries, Hook and Cliffhanger said “We have to show that we are opening our arms across the world. All these festivals started somewhere and if Cannes why can’t we? What we want is an international film festival – my work life has been completely international and I have worked all over the world”.
Newcastle based Kirsty Bell, MD of Goldfinch Entertainment, who has personally raised over 230 million for the film industry sits on the board of the Newcastle Film Festival along with TJ Gill, Bollywood Producer (credited with taking MTV to India) and President of the Newcastle Film Festival Jacqui Miller-Charlton MBE from Sunderland.