About the Festival

March 12-14th, 2010

Launched in 1999, the da Vinci Film Festival began as part of the summer celebration of art, science, and technology, da Vinci Days. The original, a screening of animated films during the summer festival, has evolved into an established and well-attended annual celebration of independent film. Still a program of da Vinci Days, da Vinci Film Festival is now held in the spring, bringing audiences a variety of independent films from around the world, in several genres.

Filmmaking is in a renaissance period of transformation. The visual language of film has been established and the technology is immeasurably evolved from the tripod bound hand-cranked cameras of the past to the point where all the tools a filmmaker needs can be found in a hand-held high-definition digital camera and a reasonably powerful computer loaded with editing, special effects and music creation software.

This same technology is also being used by the filmmakers themselves to bypass normal distribution channels and market their work directly to the public, and as audiences become more sophisticated, they are coming to understand that some very good filmmaking never makes it to the theater chains.

Audiences are another part of the new renaissance. Now thoroughly literate in the language, they are no longer content to be spectators. They want to be part of the conversation, and at the da Vinci Film Festival, and at film festivals around the country they are showing up in increasing numbers, eager to discover hidden treasure, hear new voices, be the first to spot new films and filmmakers on the cinematic horizon.

Like our renaissance namesake, the da Vinci Film Festival shares this spirit of looking toward the new, seeing things with fresh eyes, and we applaud the work and creativity of the filmmakers we present and equally acknowledge festival attendees whose openness and readiness to embrace new ideas assures that cinema continues to evolve into its next hundred years.