WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Every film festival has its humble beginnings, and the RiverRun International Film Festival, it’s reminiscent of 25 years of film screenings in North Carolina.
"You know most festivals start very small and RiverRun began very small in Brevard, North Carolina near Asheville. We take our name from the French Broad River that flows through that part of the state, and it was just a tiny weekend festival, about three years later, it moved to Winston-Salem where it’s been ever since, and when it got here it was also still just basically a weekend festival, but we have experienced such growth over the years," said Rob Davis.
Rob Davis has been the executive director of the festival for the past seven years and since they moved to the Triad, RiverRun has found its home.
“It was so obvious that this region embraced the film festival and wanted it to succeed and loved it so much and it really, you know the films are our product at the show, but at the heart of the festival that’s the people," Davis said.
The size of the audience hasn’t been the only evolution for the festival.
“When it started, it was actually mailed DVDs of what we had one copy of the film that we had to lend out to people and make sure and make sure they brought it back because it was the only copy," Said Mary Dossinger.
Dossinger joined RiverRun 16 years ago and is now the program director.
Through her tenure, she’s seen RiverRun’s profile grow.
“When I had first started, we are almost half the amount of submissions that we have now, and so we actively went to seek out films from various universities, distribution companies, things like that, so a lot of actively asking for films, and now the majority of our films come from our random submissions," said Dossinger.
Their initial tally was 28 films back in 1999, now?
"We had almost 1800 films and from that, we have assembled a program of 174 films representing 34 countries," Davis said.
This film festival is ever-expanding, and it doesn’t look like it will be slowing down anytime soon.