By Richard Houdek, Special to the Eagle CHATHAM, N.Y. — Annie Brody identifies herself as a proponent of “smaller is good.” “I like the idea of the close-knit feeling here,” she explained, discussing her recent appointment as executive director of the Chatham Film Club, and the first person to occupy the position in the club’s 14-year history. Previously, Brody was an administrator and consultant with experience in nonprofit and small-business program management, marketing and community service, notably for Earth Force, a youth environmental organization, and she is the founder and manager of Camp Unleashed, a seasonal weekend program in the Berkshires for dogs and their people. Brody recalls her joy in volunteering for the first FilmColumbia festival, when she moved to the area from Manhattan. “It was a little idea that started in 1999, of bringing some good films in,”…
Small-Town Festival Focuses On Films, Not Stars
By Dina Temple-Raston, NPR Think about famous film festivals and the words Cannes, Sundance or perhaps Toronto come to mind. But increasingly, movie buffs don’t have to travel to the south of France to get a film festival fix. Small towns across the country have launched down-to-earth offerings and film festivals for the rest of us. Main Street in Chatham, N.Y., is just a single block long and is anchored by the Crandell Theatre, a single-screen cinema announced by an old-style lighted marquee. When it was built in 1926, it was envisioned as a vaudeville theater. It has a stage, an orchestra pit — even dressing rooms. But that was then; this is now. Now the Crandell Theatre is the sun around which FilmColumbia — Chatham’s 10-year-old film festival — revolves. Go to one of those big festivals and 20…