Author: Mark Shaffer

The Beaufort International Film Festival Celebrates Story by Mark Shaffer The numbers – all of them records – preface the story: 16 thousand tickets sold, four days and nights of screenings, each screening averaging over 300 people with more than eighty filmmakers and attendees representing 33 states and half a dozen nations. Now, here’s the real story: this is one of the top 20 film festivals on the planet and it all takes place on one screen, under one roof, on an historic college campus backing up to the Intracoastal Waterway in a theater that seats less than 500 people. 

Five films, five vastly different topics – the official selections in this year’s Features category have been called the strongest in BIFF history. Festival runners Ron and Rebecca Tucker concur. “Several of our judges couldn’t stop using the word ‘wow,’” says Ron. All five films will be represented in Beaufort by the following individuals…

BIFF 2019 Pat Conroy Lifetime Achievement Award Interview by Mark Shaffer                     Henry Hill (narrating): Paulie may have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn’t have to move for anybody. – Goodfellas, 1990 When Director Martin Scorsese was looking to cast the role of caporegime Paul “Paulie” Cicero in Goodfellas, he knew he needed an actor who could embody a sense of lethal gravitas. The man had to inspire fear and loyalty just by walking into a room. He found that actor in Paul Sorvino. In GQ’s 2010 oral history of the film, Sorvino recalls, “I had a sense of elevation the entire time I was making it. I’ve never had that before or since, making a movie. Felt I was three feet in the air.” 

The Beaufort International Film Festival at 13 As this issue of Lowcountry Weekly hits the streets the Beaufort International Film Festival prepares to celebrate its 13thyear. Appropriately enough, BIFF’s put on some serious growth as it enters its teens. This year festival runners Ron and Rebecca Tucker added an extra day to the event, significantly expanding the slate of films (and Ron’s chronic fear that no one will show up). This year more than 80 filmmakers are scheduled to attend. The festival gets under way Tuesday the 19thwith a gala at Tabby Place in downtown Beaufort.

Charleston’s Joyce Gilliard Recognized for Career Achievement Story by Mark ShafferPhotos courtesy Joyce Gilliard Even over the phone, Joyce Gilliard comes across as a force of nature. She has to be with a resume like this: 30 years as a professional hairstylist, author, activist, educator, motivational speaker, founder of the SC Hair & Makeup Network and creator of the non-profit iSAFE! TV & FiLM, LLC. And somewhere in there she’s managed to have a family (3 kids), work toward her doctorate in cosmetology and start another book. She’s genuinely flabbergasted at being honored with the Behind the Scenes Award at this year’s Beaufort International Film Festival. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it,” she says. “It’s crazy.”

The 13th Beaufort International Film Festival Runs February 19-24 By Mark Shaffer As I write this, the Sundance Film Festival has once again flooded the notoriously uptight state of Utah with a crazed mob of the film industry’s hippest, designer-clad, indie auteurs. Past, present and future. Each year the sleepy little ski village of Park City transforms into Cannes in the Wasatch Mountains. Although there are undoubtedly fewer scantily clad starlets preening for the paparazzi in the cold and the beer is 3.2%. For a dozen days and nights this is schmooze central for the movie biz, where the term “bidding war” is practically blowing in the wind.

‘Beaufort in Films,’ a special exhibit at Beaufort History Museum presented in partnership with Ron and Rebecca Tucker of the Beaufort Film Society, is currently open to the public.