Chagrin Documentary Film Festival is an annual

documentary film festival Documentary film festivals are film festivals devoted solely to documentary film, which is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originall ...

based in

Chagrin Falls Chagrin Falls is a village in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States and is a suburb of Cleveland in Northeast Ohio's Cleveland-Akron-Canton metropolitan area, the 19th-largest Combined Statistical Area nationwide. The village was established and h ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. The festival debuted in 2010, with 93 films showing in venues throughout the village. That year, the festival had an attendance of 1,800. By the 2015 festival, that number had grown to almost 7,000, while the number of films shrank to less than 70. The festival currently has an all-volunteer staff.

History

The festival's director is Mary Ann Quinn Ponce, who founded the festival in 2010 in honor of her son,

filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

David Ponce. The festival is operated by Fevered Dreams Productions. Fevered Dreams Productions was founded by

Chagrin Falls High School Chagrin Falls High School is a public high school located in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, United States, an eastern suburb in the Greater Cleveland metropolitan area. The high school's mascot is Mortimer the Tiger. History Chagrin Falls High School issued ...

Alumnus and filmmaker David Ponce as his film production company. David was inspired to tell the story of Sparrow Village, an aids orphanage in

Johannesburg, South Africa Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

in a documentary entitled ''The Lost Sparrows of Roodepoort''. However David contracted

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

, and died in 2006 before his film could be completed. With the help of his friend Brock Carter and

Chapman University Chapman University is a private research university in Orange, California. It encompasses ten schools and colleges, including Fowler School of Engineering, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Fowler School of Law, and Schmid College of Scie ...

/ Dodge College of Film Assistant Dean Michael Kowalski, ''The Lost Sparrows of Roodepoort'' was completed. Fevered Dreams Productions has become a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

dedicated to allowing talented filmmakers to tell their unique stories.

References

External links

* {{official website, https://www.chagrinfilmfest.org/
Official Facebook page
Film festivals in Ohio Film festivals established in 2010