The Columbus Dispatch • Thursday October 8, 2015
In the Star Trek franchise, Capt. James T. Kirk and his crew heeded a “prime directive”: Don’t interfere with civilizations they might encounter.
Java Kitrick, president and director of Puffin Foundation West, disagrees with Starfleet Command.
“The idea is, sometimes you have to interfere to make things right,” Kitrick said. Since 2010, her foundation has “interfered” by providing grants and seed money to Columbus-area arts groups, including more than $150,000 to filmmakers.
“I’m trying to establish a great base of really good people who do good things — and, if you give them grant money, can do great things,” she said.
On Sunday at the Gateway Film Center, the organization will help match nonprofit agencies and movies during the second annual Puffin Collaborative Film Festival.
To fill each spot on the five-film program, two organizations with a common mission selected a movie that reflected their goals. The proceeds will be divided among the presenting groups and the Gateway.
“I advised a little,” said festival director Susan B. Halpern.
And the nonprofits had a chance to work together.
“The idea was to create a dynamic partnership between not-for-profit leaders in our town who understand totality, honor and service,” Kitrick said.
For audience members, the festival provides a chance to be educated and entertained.
“The whole idea of movie watching is, it’s this thing you do with other people,” Halpern said. “You go the movies, you have great seats, you sit with like-minded people, you eat popcorn, you have a great time, and you help your favorite nonprofits.”
The film screenings and their presenting groups:
• Big Night (1996): Stanley Tucci and Tony Shaloub star as brothers who open an authentic Italian restaurant in 1950s New Jersey, where the patrons prefer Americanized spaghetti and meatballs. They lure bandleader Louis Prima to their restaurant for a private party, allowing the brothers to make an impression. (Simply Living, Local Matters)
• Boy Meets Girl (2014): Eric Schaeffer wrote and directed the comedy-drama about Ricky, a transgender girl (Michelle Hendley) living in small-town Kentucky who hangs out with childhood friendRobby (Michael Welch). Ricky makes a new friend in Francesca (Alexandra Turshen), who soon becomes more than a friend, even though she is engaged to a Marine stationed in Afghanistan (Michael Galante). (Stonewall Columbus, AIDS Resource Center Ohio)
• My Left Foot (1989): Daniel Day-Lewis won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Christy Brown, a man with cerebral palsy who, with the help of his determined mother (Oscar winner Brenda Fricker), becomes a painter and author with the use of only his left foot. (VSA Ohio, ACLU Foundation Ohio)
• Promised Land (2012): The drama, directed by Gus Van Sant, stars Matt Damon as a salesman at a natural-gas company sent to a struggling rural community to buy drilling rights for his company. But an activist (John Krasinski) arrives to tell the landowners about the dangers involved. (Ohio Environmental Council, Ohio Citizen Action)
• The Soloist (2009): Based on a true story, Jamie Foxx plays a homeless musician and former child prodigy who battles mental illness while living on the streets of Los Angeles. He is discovered by a journalist (Robert Downey Jr.), who turns his search for a story into a mission to help the musician. (ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Harmony Project)
