Author: Mark Shaffer

Big Changes for the 6th Annual Beaufort International Film Festival Each year since its inception the Beaufort International Film Festival has grown. Ticket sales and attendance have doubled each year and submissions have poured in from across the globe as have the attending filmmakers. Each year the quality of entries across the various categories has continued to improve. A number of 2011 BIFF premiers continue to show and win awards on the international film festival circuit.

 Next February the Beaufort International Film Festival takes up residence in its new home at the USCB Center for the Arts. As festival organizers looked to take the event to the next level they had only to cross Carteret Street to find a kindred spirit in the Center’s Director, Bonnie Hargrove. (Read about changes at BIFF here.) In the brief span of about eighteen months Hargrove has positioned the Center for the Arts at the forefront of the visual and performing arts in the region through strong community involvement and support. In 2010 the Center joined the digital age with Hi-Def broadcasts of The Metropolitan Opera – a huge success – and a technological investment that opened the door to a new dimension of possibilities.

As the Beaufort County Open Land Trust begins its fifth decade and continues to expand its land preservation efforts, it also undergoes a change of leadership. Patricia R. Kennedy is the new Executive Director of the Trust as Ann Bluntzer steps down to relocate to Texas with her family. Kennedy leaves the same post at the Palmetto Bluff Conservancy after eight years, serving on the board of the Land Trust for most of that time. Both women see a seamless transition as the role of the Land Trust continues to widen and evolve, expanding its role beyond the boundaries of Beaufort County.

How SILO may reinvent the way we shop for food. Friday is Market Day in Habersham, the award-winning master plan community on the bluffs of the Broad River. The streets running through the Marketplace – the quaint, village-like epicenter – are blocked off. The Farmers Market takes shape as tents, tables, booths and vendors appear beneath the sprawling branches of live oaks. Musicians set up amplifiers and microphones next to the tiny post office. The shops and restaurants flow with a rising tide of customers and patrons well into the evening. The sound of playing children mixes with music, conversation, laughter and competing aromas drifting from the local kitchens.

Volunteers descend on a small Bluffton farm for a day of work, fun and food. A crop mob sounds dangerous and ugly, like some kind of agrarian uprising – barbarians at the gate with pitchforks and scythes. But to a struggling solitary farmer, a crop mob is a welcome sight: Empathetic fellow travelers come to join battle against weeds and blight.

The Backyard Tourist chills at two new hot spots in downtown Beaufort We’re a mile from the sun… It’s hot. It’s screen-door-to-hell hot. It’s so hot that we’ve received unsubstantiated reports of tourists from northern climes spontaneously combusting on beaches, golf courses and in outlet mall parking lots. Even hardboiled Lowcountry natives – fired in the kilns of brutal southern summers – have all but abandoned porch swings, picnic tables, softball fields and sandbars to cower indoors with the shades drawn. Some actually take refuge in a kind of hermetically sealed, climate-controlled hibernation not to be seen again until mid October, or – at the earliest – the inaugural home football game.

The Backyard Tourist Sails on Stranger Tides: Food, drink and music in America’s Oldest City Editor’s note: To read Part I, go here.   The words are etched on the window in the shape of a giant eye in bold block print: FOR SCENIC VIEW PRESS NOSE HERE. It’s a postcard spring day on St. George Street, St. Augustine’s pedestrian promenade of shops, bars, restaurants, museums, street performers, and local color. This is the heartbeat of the tourist trade, the main vein. St. George splits the north end of the historic district running from the City Gates southward eventually spilling out in the shadow of the magnificent Cathedral Basilica onto the Plaza de la Constitución. 

The St. Augustine Music Festival returns to the Basilica   Music is ubiquitous in St. Augustine. Stroll St. George Street in the afternoons and evenings and the sound of live music is as thick as the scent of summer jasmine.  Live entertainment is a given in the bars, restaurants, cafes and clubs. Street performers stake out prime spots to take advantage of maximum pedestrian exposure. On any given night it’s possible to see and hear just about anything on or off the street. On a recent visit I happened by a trio of dreadlocked surf punks playing an old Clash tune on lute, bongos and the didgeridoo. Seriously, the didgeridoo. It was a uniquely twisted interpretation of Train In Vain I’m sure Joe Strummer would have appreciated.