Tag: Workshop

Press Release: #GLCFF2024 Kicks Off October 17-20 in Buffalo

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!

(Buffalo, New York, October 9, 2024) We are proud to announce our 10th annual Great Lakes Christian Film Festival, October 17-20, 2024, 9am – 9pm, at Bread of Life Church, 1638 South Park Ave, Buffalo, NY 14220. We will feature over 50 faith-based and family friendly films from around the globe, from Documentary and Narrative Features, to Student Shorts and Music Videos. In addition will have workshops, industry panels, and conclude with an Awards Ceremony, Sunday Night at 6pm. Cost ranges from $12 to $199 (VIP). Group discounts available for FIVE or more attendees.
Panel Discussions and Workshops scheduled, include two sessions hosted by David Heavener, a 35-year veteran in Hollywood as Actor, Producer, and Director. Saturday Night at 7 pm we will screen the premiere of the film Lucy and the Lake Monster, starring Western New York Actors DG Peltan, Lori Francisco-Peltan, and Shawn Patrick Greene, directed by Richard Rossi. PLUS, Frank Rossi, of Buffalo Film Casting, will discuss his involvement in casting for the film from Angel Studios, Cabrini.
More details including some of the film trailers on our website: www.glcff.com
If you would like to volunteer let us know by filling out the form: https://glcff.com/support/volunteers/
Shawn Patrick Greene
Executive Director
716-563-5984
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OFFICIAL FULL PRESS RELEASE
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Great Lakes Christian Film Festival Returns for its 10th Edition
October 17-20, 2024 at the Bread of Life Church in Buffalo, NY

Buffalo, NY – October 9, 2024 – The Great Lakes Christian Film Festival (GLCFF) is thrilled to announce its 10th annual celebration of faith-based films and filmmakers. The festival will take place from October 17-20, 2024, at the Bread of Life Church in Buffalo, NY. Over the past decade, GLCFF has grown into one of the premier events in Christian cinema, showcasing films from around the world that inspire, uplift, and encourage audiences.

Founded in 2014 by Shawn Patrick Greene, GLCFF has become a beacon for faith-based filmmakers, offering them a platform to share their stories and creative visions. This year’s festival promises to be a memorable event, featuring an exciting lineup of feature films, documentaries, shorts, and student films, all centered on themes of hope, faith, and redemption.

Highlights of the 2024 Festival Include:

  • Film Screenings: More than 50 films from around the globe will be featured, including award-winning projects, thought-provoking documentaries, and inspiring short films.
  • Special Guests and Speakers: Renowned Christian filmmakers, actors, and producers will be in attendance for panel discussions, Q&A sessions, and workshops.
  • Networking Opportunities: GLCFF provides an invaluable platform for Christian filmmakers to connect, collaborate, and celebrate their craft together.
  • Awards Ceremony: The festival will conclude with an awards ceremony recognizing excellence in various categories, including Best Feature Film, Best Director, and the Audience Choice Award.

This year’s venue, Bread of Life Church, provides a warm and welcoming atmosphere for festival attendees, making it the perfect backdrop for a weekend of faith and fellowship. The church is located in the heart of Buffalo, a city known for its vibrant arts and culture scene.

Tickets and Registration: Tickets are available now for single-day passes, full festival passes, and group rates. To purchase tickets and see the full schedule of events, visit the official GLCFF website at http://www.glcff.com.

About the Great Lakes Christian Film Festival: The Great Lakes Christian Film Festival is dedicated to showcasing and celebrating films that reflect Christian values. Since its inception, GLCFF has brought together filmmakers and audiences to experience films that entertain, inspire, and challenge in a Christ-centered way. The festival seeks to promote positive media and to support filmmakers in their mission to impact the world through storytelling.

For media inquiries, interviews, and press passes, please contact:

Shawn Patrick Greene
Founder/Director, Great Lakes Christian Film Festival
Email:glcffest@gmail.com
Phone: (716) 253-1870‬
Website: http://www.glcff.com

Join us this October as we celebrate faith, film, and fellowship in the heart of Buffalo!

MEDIA CONTACT:
Shawn Patrick Greene
Great Lakes Christian Film Festival
glcffest@gmail.com
Phone: (716) 253-1870‬
Website: http://www.glcff.com

 

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Season 5 is underway!

A WORD FROM OUR TEAM

Greetings friends, fans, and family of the Great Lakes Christian Film Festival,

We want to thank you all for your continued support for this amazing event. TICKETS go on sale April 1, 2019. Whether you attend the event or not, feel free to support us as you see fit, via Sponsorship, Membership, Partnership, Volunteering, etc. Go to the Support page for the links.

It’s been a exciting journey so far since its inception in May 2014. The first year was dedicated to research and development in preparation of our inaugural season , launched August 2015. Starting from scratch, we have had to learn the hard way on how an event of this magnitude is conducted. We’ve had steady growth in 2016 and tested the waters at a new venue in 2017 at the Millennium Hotel with great success.

Our FINAL SUBMISSION deadline is MAY 31, 2019. DON’T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE!

We loved the venue so much, in 2018 we continued our partnership with them, expanded our options with another room and added more workshops. More films will be screened in 2019, as we booked more time for our selections. We’ve also revamped our submission categories and now have included scripts, animations, and student films.

We’ve premiered films in our market, upgraded our awards, added new merchandise, provided quality workshops, and network opportunities, and made many new friends and colleagues along the way. In 2019, we will continue to improve upon all the great ideas we’ve implemented and have some great new surprises for our attendees for this season.

Our festival is indeed an international event, yet we have the warm local feel with superb customer service and hospitality. We love our regional film community, and our state has been very film-friendly to the industry here in Western New York, not to mention accommodating to tourism. We are very excited for the future of this event as we expand our horizons and add new leadership to the GLCFF team.

Our of the toughest jobs for this type event is the marketing. We seek new ways to creatively promote and improve the awareness of our event, locally and regionally, and encourage volunteers to join our team. We’ve had great support, over the years, in our market from our local media outlets, like TCT TV and WDCX Radio, as well as our local newspaper The Buffalo News. If you would like to cover our event or would like to book an interview, please reach out to us. I look forward to hearing from you, on your ideas and comments, and look forward to meeting you at our next Film Festival.

Sincerely,

Shawn Patrick Greene, GLCFF Executive Director

http://www.GLCFF.com | Twitter: @GLCFF | Facebook: @GLCFF | Email: GLCFFest@gmail.com

Our FINAL SUBMISSION deadline is MAY 31, 2019. DON’T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE!

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Press Release: 2018 Great Lakes Christian Film Festival, Buffalo, NY

Buffalo to host 4th annual Christian Film Festival

Buffalo, NY (July 19, 2018) – The 2018 “Great Lakes Christian Film Festival” will be hosted at The Millennium, 2040 Walden Ave, Buffalo, NY 14225 between Friday August 3rd – Sunday August 5th, 2018. The festival organizers have selected over 100 films as Official Selections and will screen over 80 films from around the world, representing over 15 countries, screening narrative feature and shorts films, documentaries, student films, and music videos, as well as, many up and coming film trailers. Workshops are also scheduled on Saturday afternoon with a variety of speakers on various topics. The festival is open to the public and offers an array of subject material for any viewer, from Action and Drama, to Animation and Biographies – there is something for everyone to enjoy.

This year 8 films were nominated for Best Feature Film, including “Summer of ’67”, the story of two sisters that surviving in the shadow of their mother’s suicide, struggling to live their lives and protect their loved ones in the face of the Vietnam War. This film, Written and Directed by Sharon Wilharm, is a fictional look at the Vietnam War based on the perspective of the wives, girlfriends, and mothers of those men aboard the USS Forrestal.

Also showing, the Buffalo Premiere of the award winning feature “A Heart That Forgives” – a great story of God’s love through the healing power of forgiveness, with an all-star cast including, Carl Anthony Payne (actor and producer, known for the Martin TV Series), Lorey Hayes (actress known for her work on Dreamgirls and NCIS), and Charles Malik Whitfield who has starred in dozens of prime-time shows and feature films, but one of his proudest professional moments so far is his leading role in the Emmy-winning mini-series, “The Temptations.”

The Great Lakes Christian Film Festival also brings an assortment of fantastic Documentaries of a wide range of topics and biographies, including the wonderful story of two women in China in “Song of the Wilderness”. 70-year-old Mother Xu travelled 200 km to the mountain area of Yimeng, Shandong province, far way from her own children. She lived in a cottage without a rooftop while taking care of Fan Jianxiu, a paralytic. Despite the sarcasm and ridicules, she persevered in looking after Fan for ten years as if it was one day. Yet still the sound of her praises spread out and rising from the wilderness.

The festival includes a diverse group of workshops, like one that special guest speaker Tina Marie Griffin will present called “Hollywood Exposed” – a behind-the-scenes look at the influences in today’s Pop Culture through entertainment and media, such as, Television, Gaming, Social Media and Music.

Buffalo is a city on the rise! An All-American City known not only for sports obsession, but for having the “Best Food in America”, as well as, a growing world-class medical and research community. Innovative developments are happening around town such as Canalside, which is home to a collection of restaurants, shops and seasonal outdoor activities. Plus, Buffalo is just 30 minutes away from location of one of the 7 wonders of the world, Niagara Falls. In recent years, more and more Hollywood producers are using the Buffalo area as a backdrop for their film projects, such as “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, “Marshall” and “The First Purge”.

The Great Lakes Christian Film Festival was created in May 2014 by Founder and Executive Director Shawn Patrick Greene. Since its inception, over 500 films have been submitted in hopes of being selected and screened in front of the visiting guests and local Western New York attendees. Over 100 films are Official Selections in this year’s film festival. Walk-up registration begins Friday August 3rd at 9 am and is $35 for all 3 days or $15 for a single day. Registration and tickets sales are open online now on the website.

Information for the entire festival, including accommodations, tickets, schedule, and sponsorship opportunities, is on the official website: http://www.GLCFF.com

Downloadable Press Release: [GLCFF-2018-pressrelease]

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Greg Batiansila (Producer/Director/Writer) @POVEinstein

Greg Batiansila is a writer, director and producer who has worked in and around filmmaking for over twenty years. His work as an overachieving production assistant led to work as an overachieving location scout, which allowed him lots of time on commercial sets.

Greg’s father, the son of a Filipino from tiny Bantayan Island in the province of Cebu, Philippines, grew up in housing projects in the shadow of Louis Armstrong Park in New Orleans. Greg’s mother fled American aggression in World War II and ultimately escaped communist East Germany to West Germany before immigrating to the United States.

Even when he wasn’t on sets, Greg was writing. He wrote plays, short stories, a book on spec. He wrote articles, movie reviews, and scripts, feature scripts, shorts, spec scripts for a publishing house, radio commercials, tv ads.

Greg found himself back on sets, this time as a principle at an ad agency. He wrote and directed videos of all kinds for clients of all sorts, from GE Healthcare to AirStrip to Fiserv to the highest-rated political ad in the Wisconsin in 2010. Whether it was a parody of “The Office,” animated product videos, talking head videos…product videos shot on location all around the United States, Greg wrote, produced and worked on all of them.

Through that time, he was able to work with some brilliant cinematographers, animators, and behind-the-scenes experts, all of whom helped him gain confidence for his foray into independent narrative storytelling. The Lost Key was shot with cameras and lenses borrowed from Greg’s friends.

In 2010, Greg’s youngest daughter passed away just days before her second birthday. On the day of her funeral, his father died. Those events spurred him to strive earnestly to tell stories and work tirelessly to create beauty in a world that needs it.

Working with a tight-knit clique of actors, he created, wrote and produced three seasons of a web series entitled “Leaving Eden” that gathered around 50,000 views a drama selection at ITVFest, amongst other critical praise.

The show featured original music from independent artists all over the world. Music is a critical part of Greg’s storytelling.

Greg had 2 shorts films as official selections in our Great Lakes Christian Film Festival in 2016 and 2017. In 2016 “Runner” was Nominated Best Short Film [over 20 minutes] and in 2017 “The Lost Keys” was Nominated Best Comedy. He was also on our Producer/Director Panel Discussion in our 2017 Workshops. Greg’s project “The Shepherd” is the 3rd installment in the “Lost” parables.

 

For more information go on Greg Batiansila’s Production Company POV Einstein: http://www.poveinstein.com/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/poveinstein

Twitter: twitter.com/poveinstein

 

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And the Winner is… #GLCFF2017

It’s a wrap!

What an incredible event this year. We had great films, awesome guests, and a fun awards ceremony. Over 40 films were screened with a great variety of diverse subjects and stories, some of which were real tear jerkers. Our Special guest, Lindsey Partridge and Frank Rossi blessed us with their inspiring visits, not to mention our awesome panel of filmmakers. Also, we hosted an exciting awards ceremony that we streamed LIVE on facebook.

As tired as we were after the event, we are already planning and getting ready for next year’s film festival – we got a great lineup planned for Buffalo. Stay tuned as we update our site frequently with all the new details.

Here is the complete list of winners for each of this year’s award categories. https://glcff.com/films/2017-official-selections-glcff2017/2017-winners-glcff2017/

Vote for the People’s Choice Awards: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RXT75MV

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