Nine days of film, 19 years and counting.
The Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival is the oldest and largest event of its kind in the State of Delaware. Now in its 19th year, the award winning RBIFF has developed into a mid-Atlantic fall destination event for film enthusiasts from more than fifteen states.
The Festival is presented by the Rehoboth Beach Film Society, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization which also provides a broad scope of independent film screenings, mini-festivals and theme-oriented film series throughout the year. According to Dave Ruffner, administrative coordinator for the film society, this year’s festival went even better than expected.
“We sold out a lot of our films,” Ruffner says. “We get people from a number of states, they come from the metropolitan areas or come down to their second homes.”
The nine day event is held every November and offers a wide variety of American and international features, documentaries, and short films. This years festival kicked off Friday, Nov. 4 and lasted through Saturday, Nov. 12, with a bonus day on Sunday, Nov. 13. Some days, three films were shown and other days there were as many as five, Ruffner says.
Festival passes are needed to purchase tickets for each film, unless the tickets go unsold, in which case rush tickets are available.
Screenings for the festival were held at Cinema Art Theater, Cape Henlopen High School Theater and Metropolitan Community Church Rehoboth.
Ruffner says this is the third year the festival has been held at the high school and this year, students chose to get involved.
“Students from the honor society sold food for purchase and all the money raised goes towards sponsoring a family for Christmas,” Ruffner says.
Out of all the films, Ruffner says ‘A Man Called Ove,’ a Swedish film, was the most popular.
To learn more about the Rehoboth Beach Film Society, visit www.rehobothfilm.com.
