Before the Inaugural Festival The Greenwich International Film Festival was first envisioned by Wendy Stapleton Reyes, Carina Crain and Colleen deVeer, three friends and Greenwich locals involved in the area's non-profit industry. Planning for the festival began in early 2013, as according to Reyes, the founders "wanted about a two-and-a-half year cushion going in to the inaugural festival." The Festival's first official event was an Oscar-viewing launch party in March 2014, which was followed by the June 2014 hometown premiere screening of
Lucky Them in Stamford, Connecticut, hometown of the film's producer and co-writer
Emily Wachtel. On October 22, 2014, GIFF hosted a screening of
The Good Lie, in collaboration with and benefitting the
U.S. Fund for UNICEF, a
drama film on the subject of the
Lost Boys of Sudan, orphaned during the
Second Sudanese Civil War.
Inaugural Festival – 2015 The inaugural Greenwich International Film Festival took place June 4 to 7, 2015. The Festival's charitable and socially conscious mission led it to donate a portion of proceeds to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, helping to support the OneminutesJr campaign, which equips young filmmakers with the resources to create one-minute short films, and showcases their work. Over 7,500 celebrities, filmmakers, journalists, financial executives, and movie lovers attended the Festival which featured 31 domestic and international films, educational panels that were free to the public, a Children's Acting Workshop, Q&A's, parties, and evening events.
Harry Belafonte and
Mia Farrow were honored as the first-ever Changemakers in Film at the Changemaker Honoree Gala on June 6, 2015. The event was held at L’Escale restaurant in Greenwich.
Kathie Lee Gifford and
Regis Philbin presented the awards and served as Masters of Ceremony for the award ceremony. On the last night of the Festival,
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and
Maria Alyokhina of
Pussy Riot led a discussion on activism moderated by anti-corruption author
Zephyr Teachout.
Second and Third Annual Festival – 2016 and 2017 In 2016,
Reena Ninan was a media panelist for a discussion of women in power in the media at the Greenwich International Film Festival. Events leading up to the second annual festival including screening of the films
Spotlight, The Big Short, and
The Revenant. The advance screening of
The Big Short, co-sponsored by GIFF Board Member
Mark Teixeira, included a post-film panel featuring three of the men that inspired roles in the film. In early January, GIFF presented the CT premiere of the
Showtime series
Billions. The screening of the pilot episode featured a post-screening panel moderated by
David Edelstein of
New York Magazine, and featured GIFF Board Member and co-creator
David Levien, co-creator
Brian Koppelman, director of the pilot episode
Neil Burger, and actors
David Costabile and
Terry Kinney. The 2016 Festival was scheduled for June 9–12. In 2017, the festival was held for the third time.
Jenna Bush Hager by then was a board member of GIFF. == Impact ==