The year’s opening night event “An Evening with Emmy award winning writer and director, Josh Fox,” begins at 6:00 p.m. with a cocktail reception featuring heavy hors d’ouevres catered by Constantino’s and an open bar with wines from Maiolatesi Winery along with craft beers and Prosecco. At 7:00 p.m., a secret screening of Josh’s latest work-in-progress (a 95-minute feature film) will be shown, followed by a Q & A moderated by WVIA’s Julie Sodoni.

All feature films on Saturday and Sunday will be shown at the Waverly Community in the auditorium and shorts and workshops will take place throughout the building. Saturday’s lineup begins at 11:00 a.m. with four feature films (including Scranton’s “That Championship Season” which is shown at 5:00 p.m.) and 10 short films. Two WVIA-sponsored filmmaker workshops are also offered: “Feature Documentary Production” with Alexander Monelli at 12:30 p.m. and “Telling the Story” with Kelly Dessoye and Kris Hendrickson at 3:30 p.m.

Saturday’s festival events culminate with audience favorite, The Mystery Box Challenge. Back in September, participating teams received an assortment of plot devices, ranging from character names, a line of dialogue, a prop, a type of location, a plot element or a wardrobe item to include in a short film. Filmmakers had three months to write a script, cast, shoot and edit their short films based on those items. The finished products will be premiered at 7:00 p.m., followed by an awards presentation.

Sunday’s lineup includes two feature films and 15 short films beginning at 11:00 a.m. Two WVIA-sponsored filmmaker workshops will be offered: “Enhancing Productions with Animation & Graphics” with Neil Prisco at 1:30 p.m. and the “WVIA Student Showcase” at 2:30 p.m.

The Showcase challenged aspiring filmmakers in grades 4 through 12 to create a short (under five minutes) film for a possible screening at this year’s Film Festival. The films could be fiction, documentary, animated and/or experimental and of any genre. Entries were divided by student grade level – 4^th through 6^th, 7^ththrough 9^th and 10^th through 12^th and were free to students in over 40 school districts which are enrolled in WVIA’s Enhanced Scholar Program. Winning entries in each category receive three tickets to the NEPA Film Festival and a screening of the film on Sunday afternoon.