Summer Soiree w Sarah Adina Smith!

At this year’s Summer Soiree, we hosted beloved friend and filmmaker Sarah Adina Smith (Oct ‘14) and screened a preview of her new film THE DROP which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival last month. We screened the film at White Heron Theater, a venue donated by our board member Lynne Bolton. The Q&A and conversation after the film highlighted how dynamic our community is as people engaged with Sarah and her film. The after party was a blast, as it was last year, thanks largely to the generosity and spirit of board member Mark Famiglio. For the past two years he has made sure the party had great music, great food, great drink and great vibes. We couldn’t be more grateful to him.

Sarah is a perfect ambassador for the work we do. When we met her in 2014 she had yet to direct her first film. In the years since, she has become a singular storyteller working across genres in film and television. Her film BUSTER’S MAL HEART (2016) gave Academy Award winner Rami Malek his first lead role in a feature. Sarah's debut feature, THE MIDNIGHT SWIM (2014), won top prizes on the festival circuit and her third feature was the ballet psychodrama BIRDS OF PARADISE (2021) for Amazon. THE DROP (2022) is her soon to be released fourth feature. Sarah’s credits as a TV director include HANNA for Amazon, LOOKING FOR ALASKA for Hulu, ROOM 104 for HBO, LEGION for FX, and WRECKED for TBS. She’s currently slated to direct LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY starring Brie Larson for Apple+. She is truly prolific and we are proud to count her as an alumna.

And now we move from this special event to the selection of our feature screenwriters for the October Colony We look forward to introducing them to our community soon!