CLEVELAND — The Cleveland International Film Festival has kicked off and celebrating its 49th year. Hermione Malone, the executive director for the festival, said that there’s a variety of films.

 

What You Need To Know

  • The Cleveland International Film Festival is celebrating 49 years

  • The festival runs through April 5, and all the films are featured at Playhouse Square 

  • There are 300 films, with nearly 300 filmmakers from 60 different countries

  • 104 are feature films, and the rest are short films

“Animation, futuristic, there’s a lot of documentary…There are great narrative films out there, there are films in foreign languages obviously. There’s adventure, there’s romance, there’s horror, there’s comedy. There’s everything,” Malone said.

This year’s festival features 300 films from nearly 300 filmmakers from 60 countries. All the films are played at Playhouse Square, and 104 of them are feature films. The rest are short films. Malone said it’s a great opportunity for Clevelanders to come out and support independent films.

“So while so many of these filmmakers obviously are very interested in trying to get a distribution deal and seeing it on the big screen some place or streaming, so many of them won’t have that opportunity, so if you want to see independent film, particularly shorts, which often is the entry point for a lot of independent filmmakers, festivals is the vehicle by which we see these films,” Malone said.

Greg Burrowes and Ronan Cassidy are two filmmakers who have worked on films in this year’s festival. Cassidy explained one of their films, “Calf.”

“It's about a farming accident and, over the day, a lot of deep dark secrets of the family are revealed,” Cassidy said.

The other film, Burrowes said, is called “Naked Lights."

“Basically about a girl called Emma who’s working the graveyard shift in a gas station when someone comes in and wants to burn down the station, and she has to kind of fight for survival using her wits and her dry sense of humor,” Burrowes said.

Cassidy explained his excitement to be part of the Cleveland International Film Festival.

“Great to meet so many people from the community that had come to support the festival that weren’t necessarily filmmakers, and it just seems to be there’s a sense here that the town that the local people of the town have gotten really behind us,” he said.

Burrowes expressed how cool it is to have the films be played at Playhouse Square.

“I think the more film festivals, the better, and when we’re screening in lovely environments like this it just makes it all the more special,” he said.

The festival runs through April 5 at Playhouse Square.