The Hollywood Film Festival (HFF) 2015 was the second edition since the festival was acquired last year by Jon Fitzgerald and Brad Parks’ philanthropic body Cinecause. The new festival now promotes socially conscious films.
The state of the art ArcLight Theater in Hollywood played host to the festival which ran from September 23-27.
This year’s team of CEO/Executive Producer Brad Parks and Executive Director Rod Beaudoin selected 85 projects from an unprecedented 3,019 submissions, including films from James Franco and “Orange is the New Black” star Uzo Aduba.
Under Parks’ guidance, the festival transitioned toward socially relevant films anchored in causes and calls-to-action. Thanks to Beaudoin, the festival boasts international partnerships that complement its “See Good / Do Good / Feel Good” theme.
HFF included 12 World premiers, 8 U.S, Premiers and LA/West Coast Premiers, and added “TV Thursday” and “Streaming Saturday” in recognition of the evolving preferences of today’s content consumers.
New this year was series of “Curated Conversations” hand-picked experts from divers fields discussing this year’s theme of HFF: “What is the Future of Hollywood?”
“We believe great stories can change the world. And this year the Hollywood Film Festival (HFF) will again showcase some of our generation’s best independent filmmakers, cultural content creators, and social impact storytellers from the very heart of Hollywood, the “Entertainment Capital of the World.”
We also believe that social impact film tells the critical stories of many of our world’s most important, but often unrecognized, change-makers, social innovators and cultural educators. That is why we acquired the Hollywood Film Festival in 2014 and re-imagined last year’s HFF as a platform to better tell their stories, promote their films, and grow their careers by connecting independent filmmakers to leaders in the entertainment industry.
Given the strength of that Hollywood brand CineCause has also transitioned our entire organization’s efforts under the HFF name while keeping our original “See Good, Do Good, Feel Good” motto as we significantly expand our core mission of “Promoting phenomenal films about causes that count, inspiring audiences to act.”
We are also very proud to introduce our new Executive Director, Rod Beaudoin, who brings the HFF over twenty years of experience in entertainment, music, and film festival programming, promotion, and management. Over the last 6 months Rod and his team have worked with members of our global Cinema Champions community, and volunteers from 14 film schools across the United States, to program an amazing set of films.”