Get ready to mark your calendars for an exciting cinematic extravaganza in Happy Valley! The fifth annual Centre Film Festival is set to take place from Monday, October 30th to Sunday, November 5th. This highly anticipated event serves as a platform for student filmmakers, independent creators, and established talents to showcase their captivating stories.

Fifth annual Centre Film Festival

Monday, Oct. 30-Sunday, Nov. 5

Rowland Theatre
127 N. Front St., Philipsburg
State Theatre
130 W. College Ave., State College

The Centre Film Festival will return for its fifth year with a schedule of films that explore “local films with global impact as well as global films with local impact.” The annual event provides Happy Valley’s student, indie and established filmmakers a venue to highlight their stories.

In addition to diverse film screenings, the festival also will feature artist panels, master classes, live music, and food trucks at the historic Rowland Theatre and the State Theatre.

The annual festival champions films that have a message for our community, including made-in-PA stories, “pride on screen,” celebration of Native American Heritage Month or bringing awareness to the situation in Ukraine.

Pearl Gluck, the festival’s co-founder and artistic director, said she and the late Curt Chandler (1957-2022) started the event as a way to share stories for discussion.

“I think it's incredibly important to hear what small town or rural America has to say in the larger context and as we encourage the growth of an arts economy at our doorstep,” she said.

This year’s event is being organized to highlight how a film economy might help the region thrive.

“We have the opportunity to be a platform toward building the foundations of a film economy,” Gluck said. “This year we are partnering with Film, Arts, Culture and Tourism Specialists; the Central Pennsylvania Film Commission; and Happy Valley Adventure Bureau to continue building opportunities so the industry can sustain itself here.”

In addition to the diverse local and international film screenings, the festival will feature master classes for high school students with a focus on trades.

“This year we are adding a carpentry/construction element through TradeOFF, an organization whose mission it is to make teens aware of their potential roles on set though set design, building, transportation and so on,” Gluck said.

“That is really what we want to do at this festival is to create job opportunities here, encourage the film industry from the ground up to continue to develop here, be part of developing an arts appreciation and workforce here, and keep the high school and college students we educate here local,” she said.

Gluck, also an associate professor of screenwriting and directing at Penn State, said she hopes the festival shows local young people and creatives the potential in and opportunities that already exist in the Centre County region.

“When my students say they have to leave central Pennsylvania [after graduating], and they don't really want to, but they can only get hired and find official industry jobs in Philly and Pittsburgh, or New York and Los Angeles, we want to change that conversation. We want to be relevant. As a film festival, celebrating film locally and beyond, we have the opportunity to be a platform toward building the foundations of a film economy here.”

An awards ceremony will cap off the Centre Film Festival’s week of programming. Past recipients of the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Awards celebrated Pennsylvania natives or Penn State alums in the film world, including Stan Lathan, Madeline Anderson, Tony Buba, Patrick Fabian and Keegan-Michael Key.

Gluck said the screening committee is in the process of selecting films, and the lineup will be available after September 15. This year, she said, the committee is narrowing down and rating a record number of film submissions, which she attributes to positive word of mouth.

“We’re growing and we have this community here in Happy Valley to thank for it,” Gluck said. “We’re excited that the community has kept us here and relevant. We believe there is a symbiotic relationship between building an arts economy, and helping our local businesses and Main Streets stay vibrant.”

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Heather Longley is an arts writer living in Centre County.