Carrboro Film Festival returns for its 11th year

Ten years ago, filmmaker Nic Beery and a few friends rented out the Century Center in Carrboro one afternoon to put on the first Carrboro Film Festival.

Now, Beery is preparing for the festival to come to the ArtsCenter this weekend. As it’s grown over the years, the festival has changed more than just its location.

An afternoon of film showings has turned into a full two-day event with workshops and an awards ceremony. The once exclusively local film festival now allows submissions from around the world.

Patrick Phelps-McKeown, the marketing director at the ArtsCenter, said bringing in international films was particularly exciting for the people at the center, who are currently expanding their film programs.

“I think it’s great,” Phelps-McKeown said.

“Filmmakers from Carrboro, from the Triangle and North Carolina in general get to expose their films and then get to talk with filmmakers from outside the state, outside the country, and I think that’s a really positive thing.”

For Beery, some of the most exciting filmmakers to see are the ones who came to previous festivals as audience members.

“Filmmakers present their films, and then there are people in the audience that get the idea of, ‘Hey, I could do this too,’” he said.

“Then two or three years later, they submit their film because they were inspired by something they saw at the Carrboro Film Festival, and that really, really is wonderful.”

Two such people are local filmmakers Michael and Cindy Salerno.

After volunteering with the festival for a few years, the couple will premiere “Vinyl Dinosaurs,” a documentary about a teenage girl discovering vinyl in the Triangle area, Saturday.

“It’s exciting because this side of it is definitely new to us and we’ve been to other film festivals and volunteered at them over the years and it’s very exciting,” Michael said.

“It’s a little bit daunting too, sort of putting your work out there as well.”

The Salernos will participate in panels after their documentaries screen. Altogether, 12 panels will be held after blocks of film screenings.

“Those are always awesome because the audience gets to hear how the film was made, how the story came about,” Beery said.

“It’s a great time — how often do you get to go to a film and then talk to the filmmaker or the actors immediately after the screening?”

The festival will begin at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the ArtsCenter and will end at 6 p.m. on Sunday, followed by an afterparty for attendees and presenters to celebrate the weekend’s films.

Michael Salerno said he hopes Triangle residents take advantage of the opportunity to create relationships with producers, even if they’re in the audience.

“A lot of places don’t have that kind of thing,” Salerno said.

“To see voices from all over the world and right and around the corner from where you live is an incredible opportunity.”

@yayjennic

swerve@dailytarheel.com