The inaugural Carnegie Screenwriters Script & Screen Festival pushes the boundaries from regional to global for a group that has been evolving for more than a decade.
A call for scripts of up to 15 pages and films 20 minutes or less yielded more than 100 submissions. Among the 28 selected short films coming to the Tull Family Theater in Sewickley will be premieres from Argentina, Iran, Russia, the UK and throughout the United States. Genres include animation, documentary, musical, horror, comedy and family-friendly fare.
The film showcase on Sunday initially sold out and was moved into the Tull center’s larger theater, of about 170 seats. The weekend also will include seated readings of three scripts at a Saturday evening reception.
Carnegie Screenwriters has members from Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, and includes filmmakers, teachers, students, a judge, a former PI, soccer moms and more. The group began with a 1998 meeting at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, with the mission to “provide an active, supportive community for scriptwriters of all ages, backgrounds and levels of experience.”
From the beginning, there was talk of creating a competition or a place to showcase new work, but none had materialized, said festival director Wendy Grube.
As the screenwriters group evolved to include actors and filmmakers, the idea of a competition morphed into a festival of readings and short films, “in the hopes of bringing more people locally together, as well as bringing in people from outside the area,” she said.
She never imagined how far outside the area.
“What really surprised me,” Ms. Grube said, “was where we were getting submissions from, considering we were just using our local social media accounts, in addition to FilmFreeway,” an online gathering place for competitions, festivals and filmmakers.
On Saturday at the Carnegie Screenwriters Script & Screen Festival, the reception begins at 6 p.m., when guests can mingle with screenwriters and filmmakers, followed by seated readings of the selected scripts: “DIG” by Robert Brian Taylor of Mt. Lebanon; “The Badge, the Gun and the Hangman’s Noose” by Edward Santiago of Austin, Texas; and “Hell to Pay: The Legend of Robert Johnson” by Giancarlo Fusi of Los Angeles. Portions of the evening will be filmed for an episode of WQED’s “Filmmakers Corner,” to be aired in the fall.
The Tull Family Theater, which opened in February, views hosting the inaugural festival as an opportunity to “show its support for filmmakers and screenwriters from Pittsburgh and beyond,” said Carolina Pais-Barreto Beyers, the Tull’s executive director.
Sunday’s film showcase runs from 11 a.m.-5 p.m., with doors opening at 10 a.m. Tickets must be purchased in advance for the reception/script reading ($22) and screenings ($15) at www.brownpapertickets.com. For more details, www.facebook.com/cswfestival.
The Silver Theater Project
A monthly series of salon-style play readings by Pittsburgh performers who are 40 and older, of plays written by local playwrights, also 40 and older, is set to launch next month. The inaugural salon will be Sept. 24 at the Glitter Box Theater, 460 Melwood Ave., Oakland.
Founder and playwright Michael McGovern said he felt there is a need in Pittsburgh to create opportunities for older writers and performers, and to foster material that “engages the older generations.”
Readings are scheduled through November, leading to a fundraising event in February 2018, followed by an “Ageless Cabaret” and, ultimately, to a fully staged production in the fall. The Silver Theater Project’s first two readings will be of “Coffee and Kisses” by Mr. McGovern and “Retrospect” by Kim El, the Pittsburgh poet, playwright, director and performer.
For the first event, doors open at 7 p.m. and readings begin at 7:30 p.m. There is a suggested donation of $10, and a cash bar will be available courtesy of The Glitter Box. More at www.facebook.com/TheSilverTheaterProject.
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg.
First Published: August 23, 2017, 10:00 a.m.
