This L-A film festival was organized in less than 3 months — and it's already starting to sell out
The Emerge Film Festival starts in the Lewiston-Auburn area tonight, but with over 1,000 passes sold and a large group of sponsors supporting it, you probably couldn't have guessed that it was organized from the ground up in less than three months.
Katie Greenlaw, director of public relations at Lewiston-based Rinck Advertising and a board member of Emerge Film Festival, told Mainebiz that the local business community scrambled to bootstrap the festival in late March after learning that the popular Lewiston-Auburn Film Festival was in jeopardy because its founder was arrested on child pornography charges.
“When it became clear that LAFF was going nowhere, we had this dream team come together,” she said, noting that the festival’s cancellation was putting several films — including the premier of the Maine-made feature “Richard3” — in jeopardy.
From there, Greenlaw and others from the Lewiston-Auburn business community decided to rescue the films that were signed up and distance themselves from the negativity surrounding LAFF and Joshua Shea’s arrest by starting the Emerge Film Festival as a new entity.
“Everybody wanted to see this community keep film alive,” she said. “A lot had to happen.”
All told, it only took five days from Shea’s arrest for the enterprising group to come together, conceive a name and hold a press conference announcing the new film festival, Greenlaw said. Since then, more than 30 businesses have come together to sponsor the festival, including law firm Brann & Isaacson, Rinck Advertising and the Hilton Garden Inn in Auburn.
Between today and Saturday, 40 films will be featured across several venues in the Lewiston-Auburn area. Greenlaw said the festival’s organizers hope to fill all the theaters’ seats over that time to help support future events and drive the local economy.
“It helps bring another positive light to the area,” she said.
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