Ivy Film Festival (IFF) is the world's largest[1] student-run film festival, hosted annually on the campus of Brown University. The Festival was started in 2001 by then-Brown juniors David Peck and Justin Slosky in collaboration with students of the other seven Ivy League schools including vice chairman Doug Imbruce from Columbia University.[2] The founders' goal was to create a venue to showcase and honor the work of talented student filmmakers.[3] The Ivy Film Festival currently accepts submissions from around the world for both its short film and screenplay competitions.
The inaugural Ivy Film Festival was held in December 2001. A product of collaboration between the organizers, Brown's Modern Culture and Media Department, the Brown Film Society and students at other Ivy League universities, the festival weekend screened 46 student films, selected from over 150 entries, and welcomed over 300 attendees.[2] Events hosted by the Festival included talks from Oliver Stone and Henry Bean as well as the U.S. premiere of James Toback's Harvard Man, starring Adrien Grenier.
The second festival, held in April 2003 due to its growth, attracted even more attention. The additions of an international student film competition and a screenplay competition broadened interest. Guests such as Tim Robbins and Julia Stiles spoke and accepted awards; director Dylan Kidd shared his film Roger Dodger, and panelists from across the country shared their advice and experiences with students.
The 2004 Ivy Film Festival featured unprecedented expansion, with 1,500 people in attendance and over 200 student films submitted. The Festival hosted and presented awards to director Wes Craven and Academy Award-winning actor Adrien Brody, as well as holding a business panel featuring Paramount Studio Vice Chairman Rob Friedman. The Festival held exclusive advance screenings of Mean Girls and Supersize Me, celebrated films at the time that are now considered favorite cult classics.
The 2007 festival included pre-release screenings of Sundance Film Festival selections, panels, and workshops with award-winning filmmakers, and presentations by Doug Liman,[9] director of The Bourne Identity and Chan-wook Park, director of Oldboy.[10] Other guests included actor John Cho and Academy Award-winning writer and director Sarah Kernochan.[11]
The 2010 Ivy Film Festival featured an advance screening of Waiting for Superman, followed by a Q&A with director Davis Guggenheim. The festival also featured two film industry panels. The first, titled “From the Ground Up,” featured producer Andrew Renzi and writer and actor Christopher Thornton. The second, titled “Where Creativity and Commerce Merge,” featured production and development VP Abby Ex, development VP Bryan Unkeless, executive VP Milan Popelka, and production VP Adam Rosenberg.
The 2011 Ivy Film Festival occurred Tuesday, April 19 to Sunday, April 24. The festival featured undergraduate and graduate films along with professional films previously screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Most of the screenings included question and answer panels with directors, producers, writers, and actors alike. Guests included journalist Charlie Rose, director Max Winkler and actor Michael Angarano, among others. IFF also hosted a keynote panel featuring acclaimed actor James Franco and the screenwriter of The Social Network and The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin.
The 2012 Ivy Film Festival featured a selection of industry talks, including Laura Linney ‘86 and Kal Penn. Barry Levinson, the Oscar-winning director of Rain Man, accompanied his newest film The Bay, his first foray into the genre of horror. IFF also premiered the first two episodes of HBO's hit series Girls before they were televised and hosted a Q&A with creator, director, and star Lena Dunham. Additional events included advanced screenings such as Zal Batmanglij's directorial debut, The Sound of My Voice; the celebrated documentary The Invisible War; and the documentary The Atomic States of America, which was followed by a talk with producer George Hornig.[15] These events complemented diverse Official Selection blocks, featuring submissions from over fifteen countries, including Zambia, Nicaragua, Poland, and Nepal.
In 2015, Ivy Film Festival featured advanced screenings of Slow West and Trainwreck as well as screenings and The Sisterhood of Night and Dosa Hunt, which were both followed by panel discussions. The 2015 Festival introduced the Screenplay Reading series, where selected submissions to the Screenplay Competition were read live by a panel of actors. Attendees were invited to participate in workshops with Matthew Frost and Michael Schultz, and to see a panel focusing on animation in film with Brenda Chapman, Ron Ryder, and Barbara Meier. The Festival also hosted keynote addresses from Todd Haynes ‘85 and Jason Schwartzman.
The 2016 Ivy Film Festival took place from April 6 through April 12, featuring keynote speakers Jodie Foster and Robert De Niro and pre-release screenings of the films Krisha and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Panels featuring special industry guests included "The Audience in Revolt: 'Gender, Race, and Representation in Hollywood'" and "New Modes of Storytelling." 2016 was the first year that the official selection was exhibited at each Ivy League university. Robert De Niro's appearance was part of a moderated discussion led by Brown University's current president, Christina Paxson, and preceded by a screening of the HBO documentary Remembering the Artist, Robert De Niro, Sr.