2024 Special Events
Legacy Theatre Independent Film Festival
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Join us for the 2024 Legacy Theatre Independent Film Festival, which runs daily September 23-25, with a jam-packed schedule of screenings, talkbacks, and panels. Audience members may purchase a day pass to each daily event to come and go as they please throughout the schedule of film screenings. The award ceremony will take place on the festival’s final evening, September 25th. Each Day Pass (come and go as you please) is $10. Participants will receive a bracelet at the Box Office the day of attendance. Events held at the James Blackstone Memorial Library are free and open to the public.
Past esteemed judges and speakers have included 6-time Emmy-award-winning filmmaker Karyl Evans, acclaimed celebrity teacher and author on the craft, Matt Newton, and others. This year, the Legacy Theatre Independent Film Festival is excited to partner with the James Blackstone Memorial Library, offering more opportunities for student and novice filmmakers in and around the community, including equipment rentals and workshops. https://www.blackstonelibrary.org/
If you would like to submit a film for consideration, please visit: https://filmfreeway.com/LegacyTheatreFilmFestival
*SUBMISSIONS CLOSED FOR 2024*
2024 Independent Film Festival Interview Series
Legacy Theatre Managing Director, Jeff Provost, in conversation with Ernest Thompson
Ernest Thompson is a novelist, an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, a playwright, director, actor, lyricist, an in-demand public speaker, and a teacher. His own work has been produced around the world and he has helped hundreds of other writers develop their stories and thousands of actors realize their dreams of improving their skills and confidence on stage and in front of the camera. His debut novel The Book of Maps (Global Collective Publishers) is now available everywhere you buy books. Thompson has won an Oscar, two Golden Globes, a Writers Guild Award, and a Broadway Drama Guild Award for Best Play. His work has been nominated for a Tony, an Emmy, and a British Academy Award. His more than 35 plays have been seen in theatres around the world. The most enduring, On Golden Pond, has been translated into 30 languages, Arabic the newest, and played in more than 40 countries on six continents including three runs on Broadway, the most recent starring James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams.
2024 Independent Film Festival Award Winners
Best score: THE SCALPEL
Most original: MY LOVE IS A WELL
Best short comedy: A DEATH TO DIE FOR
Best short drama: YO ANDREA
Short documentary: DANCING WITH DEMONS
Best actor : James Naughton (NOT THE SAME CLARENCE)
Best Actress: Alexandra Turshen (ANOTHER YEAR TOGETHER)
CT filmmaker award: Brian Russell (YO ANDREA, NOT THE SAME CLARENCE, PAST PROLOGUE)
International film: IN THEIR OWN TIME
Best Young Filmmaker Award: Joey LaFrance (THE NEXT BELLS)
Feature length documentary award- THE THEATRE DOCUMENTARY
Feature-length Drama Award- DEATH ORCHARD
Feature-length Comedy Award- ANOTHER YEAR TOGETHER
Overall Festival winner- PAST PROLOGUE
LEGACY THEATRE FILM FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
Monday, September 23rd
Location: Legacy Theatre (128 Thimble Islands Rd, Branford, CT)
Dramatic/Comedic Shorts
10:30am The Scalpel (19:59), Directed by Richard H Lyford & Submitted by Ed Hartman
10:50am The Battle of Grovers Mill (9:31), Directed by Nolen Sternkopf
11am Lonely Girl's Love Song (17:14), Directed by Giuliana Cenatiempo & Submitted by Lucy Marinelli
11:30am A Death To Die For (17:41), Directed by Jackson Mirmina
11:50am Philadelphia Bound (22:34), Directed by David Pisani
TALKBACK Philadelphia Bound
12:30-1:30 Break
1:30 The Necklace (10:46), Directed by Kyle Gaunt
1:40 Yo Andrea (7:28), Directed by Brian Russell
TALKBACK: Yo Andrea
2:00 Past Prologue (13:35), Directed by Brian Russell
TALKBACK: Past Prologue
2:30 Not the Same Clarence (14:24), Directed by Brian Russell & Samuel B Russell
2:45 My Love is a Well (5:10), Directed by Mike Sullivan
{End of Day at Legacy Theatre}
Location: Blackstone Library (758 Main Street, Branford, CT)
3-4pm “From the Stage BACK to the Page; Turning the Play into a Film” Interview (virtually, live from New Hampshire) and Q&A with Academy Award winner Ernest Thompson, moderated by Legacy Theatre Managing Director, Jeff Provost
4:30-5:45pm Death Orchard T-Shirt Giveaway!
Death Orchard (01:10:07), Directed by Mary K DeVault & Kim Kowalski
(for mature audiences)
5:45pm TALKBACK: Death Orchard moderated by Legacy Theatre Artistic Director Keely Baisden Knudsen
Tuesday, September 24th
Location: Legacy Theatre (128 Thimble Islands Rd, Branford, CT)
Documentaries
10-noon In Their Own Time (01:53:39), Directed by Sourya Dipta
12-1 Break
1-1:30 Melakhela: Tale of a Fair (23:25), Directed by Ujjal Paul
1:30 Dancing with Demons (11:21), Directed by Nikki Jean Sahagen
Dramatic Feature-length
1:45- 3:45 Eelfacegirl (01:49:28), (for mature audiences), Directed by Na Cow
TALKBACK:Eelfacegirl
{End of Day at Legacy Theatre}
Location: Blackstone Library (758 Main Street, Branford, CT)
3pm Interview (virtually, live from India) with Sourya Dipta, filmmaker of In Their Own Time, moderated by Lonnie Reed
4:30pm Born on the Water’s Edge (28:30)
5pm Interview with Born on the Water’s Edge filmmaker Mary Lee Weber, moderated by Lonnie Reed
6pm Interview and Q&A with Award-Winning Filmmaker David Gutnik by Legacy Theatre Artistic Director Keely Baisden Knudsen
6:45pm Interview and Q&A with film and television actress and Award-Winning Filmmaker Allison Miller by Legacy Theatre Artistic Director Keely Baisden Knudsen
Wednesday, September 25th
Location: Legacy Theatre (128 Thimble Islands Rd, Branford, CT)
Feature-length Comedy
10:30am-11:50am Another Year Together (01:37:20) (for mature audiences), Directed by Daniel Hendricks Simon & Submitted by Robert Gregory
12-1 Break
Documentaries
1-2:25pm The Theatre Documentary (01:22:10), Directed by Jakob Schaefer, Abagail Vanmerlin & Liam Dunning
2:40-4 The Alchemist’s Dance (1:23:31), Directed by Arantxa Vela
Student Films
4-4:20pm SAM$ON (17:45), Directed by AT Rodgers, Cora Muschinsky (for mature audiences)
4:20-4:30pm Water, Star Medicine (10:00), Submitted by Ilysa Spencer
4:30-4:35pm Wednesday (5:00), Directed by Alexis Lariviere
4:35-4:50pm The Next Bells (15:30), Directed by Joey LaFrance
4:50-5:05pm Reminiscing (15:16), Directed by Allison Tuttle
TALKBACK Reminiscing
5:20-6:00pm African Wave (30:44), Directed by Chukwudum Okeke, Writers Mukund Desibhatla & Kelvin Amenyedor
TALKBACK African Wave
Location: Blackstone Library (758 Main Street, Branford, CT)
2:30-3:30pm Screening and Interview with Award-Winning Filmmaker Stephen Dest moderated by Lonnie Reed
3:30-4:30pm The Pequot Sisters Who Saved Their Reservation (10:00) followed by interview with Award-Winning Filmmaker Karyl Evans, moderated by Lonnie Reed
4:30-6:30pm Networking Reception
7pm AWARDS CEREMONY at Legacy Theatre (128 Thimble Islands Road, Branford, CT)