Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival unreeling 80 movies over four days
It’s not easy to organize a film festival from the other side of the country, but that hasn’t stopped Ron Quigley from trying.
The Brighton Heights native now is based in Los Angeles but has been running the Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival for 13 years. The festival showcases locally made movies from filmmakers looking for exposure and potential distribution.
This year’s four-day festival features screenings of 80 films — 50 from its 2021 slate and 30 that were scheduled for last year’s festival canceled by COVID- 19. Quigley’s not sweating it, though.
“It’s very hard coordinating across the country,” he told the Post-Gazette. “There’s a lot of logistics that go into it. But I’ve been doing it quite a few years so I’m not inventing the wheel every year.”
PIFF 2021 started Thursday and continues through Sunday at the Parkway Theater in McKees Rocks with one-, two-day or full festival passes available at www.pghindie.com.
“Come on out and have a good time,” Quigley urged local film lovers. “For $13, you can come in for an entire day and watch 12 hours worth of film. For $30, you can see the entire festival. What can you buy for $30 today? Nothing.”
Quigley spent 21 years with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire’s hazardous materials team before relocating to Los Angeles in 2002 to try making a living in the music business as a recording engineer. After a gig at a recording studio that was essentially just making coffee runs, he pivoted to filmmaking.
He wrote, directed, produced, scored and edited the 2012 feature “The Last Act” about a laid-off worker who gets caught in a drug scheme.
He described this year’s fourday, 80-film extravaganza as the biggest Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival ever. The schedule includes the narrative short “Love, Death and Therapy” (7 p.m. Saturday) and locally shot features “Jack and the Treehouse” (8:30 p.m. Saturday), “Force to Fear” (7 p.m. Sunday) and “Steel-Man” (3:30 p.m. Sunday).
Jim Schneider, 62, of Blawnox, wrote and directed “Jack,” a film about a young boy dead-set on stopping his father from selling their family’s woods. It recently had its first cast and crew screening at The Oaks Theater in Oakmont, with 75-80 people in attendance. Schneider said he’s excited to see how his film plays for a crowd that isn’t made up of just his friends.
“I think it’s a good story with a great cast,” he said. “I’m very proud of the work we did and I look forward to people seeing it.”
At 7 p.m. Saturday, Quigley will screen “A Stark Reality,” a short film that he wrote, co-directed and stars in. It follows Adam (Warden Wayne), a drug addict who slowly realizes he needs help. Quigley portrays his dying father, Glen, who is telling a priest (James Babson) how he feels about his estrangement from his son.
“A Stark Reality,” which was filmed in Los Angeles, is based on Quigley’s own son, who died four years ago after a long battle with drug addiction. Quigley said he lost contact with his son at certain points and was constantly worried about his well-being. “I had to
do something cathartic, so I wrote the script.”
He said that opioid addiction is “a pandemic, too” and that he hopes his film makes folks think about how addictions can tear families apart.
Quigley can’t wait for PIFF attendees to check out “A Stark Reality” and other amateur productions that are, in his mind, a testament to the pure love of filmmaking he and so many others share.
“I’d rather die an artist than die rich,” he said. “You won’t die rich as a filmmaker, but you’ll die happy.”