About the Festival

Four years ago, Dr. Lois Gaston, President of Hillsborough Community College, Ybor Campus, Tampa, invited David Audet, HCC Special Projects Manager, to develop and organize an annual film/video event for the college, its staff, and students.

After visiting a number of festivals in the U.S. and Canada, Mr. Audet presented Dr. Gaston with the idea of creating a celebration that would include and showcase the entire community of Ybor City, be open to the general public, and utilize the architecture and entertainment venues surrounding the college campus.

Dr. Gaston was very enthusiastic about the project and the inaugural festival was a resounding success with a six day schedule of films, forums, and performances that opened in March of 2003.

The 2004 Ybor Festival of the Moving Image has expanded to 8 days and aspires to the highest quality of programming and unique contemporary media artists possible.

To create a unique event separate from the many "film festivals" occurring almost weekly throughout the U.S., and indeed the world, this festival endeavors to bring to Ybor City professional filmmakers and artists who use the medium in traditional as well as non-traditional ways.

Audiences will not only enjoy conventional screenings of shorts, documentaries, and films of historical interest, with attendant discussions and forums, but will experience new approaches to the film/video medium by visiting site-specific film sculptures, live performances mixed with film/digital programming, experimental screenings, soundscapes and installations.

Finally, the festival endeavors to educate, entertain, and inspire the younger generations of students, their families and their friends, with the enthusiasm and joyous creativity certain to be generated by the visiting filmmakers and artists, who were selected for their desire and ability to share those qualities with their audience.