Finding a good seat at the Revolve Film and Music Festival has been a little easier than Shalini Chatterjee might have liked. Overall, though, she is quite pleased with how things have gone at the first festival.
"I just wanted to get the festival off the ground," said Chatterjee, the festival's founder and artistic director. "The festival is going perfectly."
The festival, which has 20 features and shorts on its schedule, opened Wednesday night and continues through today. All the movies are being shown in the Drama Workshop at the Salem Fine Arts Center on the campus of Salem College.
As of yesterday afternoon, attendance had ranged from 65 at the opening-night movie to one person at the movie on Thursday morning, Chatterjee said.
Lois Koufman, who was back to see another movie yesterday afternoon, happened to be that one person at the Thursday-morning screening.
She had already seen three festival movies and expected to see three more by the time it ends.
Koufman, who is also a regular at the RiverRun International Film Festival held in Winston-Salem each spring, said she was enjoying Revolve and wished it had been better attended.
One thing she especially likes about the new festival, she said, is that many of the movies have music as a theme.
Chatterjee makes her living as a singer, songwriter and musician, and the Revolve festival program also includes live music performances. About 150 people showed up at The Werehouse on Friday night for performances by Pylon and Gravel Truck.
Several people mentioned that of the movies they had seen so far, 4, a documentary about four violinists performing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons in four places across the world, had made the biggest impression. It will be shown again at 2:30 p.m. today.
By yesterday morning, Jane Stegner had already seen three movies and planned to see a total of seven by the end of today. She was having big fun.
"I think it's fantastic," she said.
For the most part, producing the first festival has been a one-woman operation, with others such as Amanda Philemon, Trevor Shelton, and Lyndon and Stephanie Bray pitching in to help.
The festival has drawn people from Charlotte, Greensboro and Durham as well a woman who lives in Philadelphia who happened to be in town on business and took advantage of the opportunity to catch a movie or two.
"I feel like the festival has gotten a greater reach than just this city," Shelton said.
■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.
■ More information about the Revolve Film and Music Festival is available at www.revolvefestival.com.
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