Ron and Rebecca Tucker
story by MICAH PEPPERS photos by SUSAN DELOACH PHOTOGRAPHY
The Beaufort International Film Festival (BIFF) will be celebrating its 18th anniversary in the Lowcountry. Each year, the BIFF brings people worldwide to this five-day event. This year, the festival will hold its opening ceremony on Tuesday, February 20. Screenings and performances will be held throughout the week, concluding on Saturday, February 24, with an awards ceremony.
Ron Tucker, BIFF co-Director, elaborated further, “The Beaufort International Film Festival takes a full year to plan, and we have big crowds come in from all over. Last year, we had six countries and 39 states represented. Filmmakers have told us they have never seen anything like it. The Film Festival premiers feature films, documentaries, shorts, student films, animations, and screenplays. They are all shown in a large movie theater, and our guests experience films they wouldn’t see anywhere else. Our first screening begins at 9:00 a.m., and screenings continue throughout the day until 11:00 p.m. The theater stays packed almost the whole time.”
As Ron stated, the film festival is not put together in a weekend. It takes months of planning. “As soon as the festival ends, we begin planning for the next one. We utilize Film Freeway, a film matchmaking service that connects filmmakers and film festivals. The filmmakers are always looking to submit to film festivals, and they enter their film into Beaufort’s International Film Festival for a potential screening.” Films from various genres are submitted, with each one being screened by Ron and his wife, co-director Rebecca Tucker. “In July, we sit down and begin watching. We use the same scoring criteria as our panel of jurors. We then send it to the first tier of jurors, and the list begins to get narrowed down. The list of films to be screened by our audiences is finalized in December.”
This year, there were over 500 submissions, a record number. Fifty-five films were selected. “Each category has a different number of films that are chosen,” Ron explains. “For example, we had 80 feature films entered, but we chose five. We also have to figure out how to schedule the longer programs like the documentary features, which can be around two hours, as well as our short films that are less than 40 minutes.”
At the end of the week, the audience gets to vote on their favorite films, and winners will be announced at the award ceremony. There is an assortment of trophies given out to the best in a specific genre, including documentary, short, student film, screenplay, director, actor/actress, musical score, ensemble, comedy, and audience choice.
So, what can guests expect at this year’s Beaufort International Film Festival? Rebecca Tucker talks details, “Our guests can expect an exceptionally large amount of attendees from the local area. Two of our films, The Final Run and The Spirit of Beaufort, were both filmed locally with a lot of local talent in the films, so those will be fun for the audience to watch. Those are both actually sold out online already. This is also the 30th anniversary of Forrest Gump, so this year is really special. Marlena Smalls, who plays Bubba’s mother in the movie, along with The Hallelujah Singers, is set to perform on opening night. The concert will be called Bubba’s Mama Sings the Blues and will be Marlena’s farewell performance.
To continue with the Forrest Gump celebrations, on February 23, Gary Sinise and the Lieutenant Dan Band will perform at MCAS Beaufort. Sinise is no stranger to the Lowcountry and has been performing for years with his band. He especially enjoys traveling to military audiences, bringing awareness to Vietnam veterans, and advocating for America’s servicemen and women. On Saturday night, Gary Sinise will receive the Pat Conroy Lifetime Achievement Award,” Ron states.
Mark your calendars for the 18th Annual Beaufort International Film Festival, Tuesday, February 20 – Sunday, February 25. For additional information and to secure your tickets, visit beaufortfilmfestival.com.
