Dropping the trailer on Youtube today, Yale in Hollywood Fest will launch their fifth edition global virtual film festival streaming free to the world from Thursday Dec 5 to Saturday Dec 7, 2024, via their worldwide website YIHfest.com.
On Saturday Dec 7 at 3 pm PT / 6 pm ET, Yale in Hollywood Fest will hold its closing awards presentation to prize winners. This year, Yale in Hollywood Fest will present the Visionary of the Year Award to actress / author / novelist Robinne Lee who wrote the novel The Idea of You which she has also produced into a feature film for Amazon Studios.
Yale in Hollywood Fest will also present the Career Achievement Award to Yale School of Drama graduate C.S. Lee, famed for his charming role Masuka on Showtime’s Dexter.
CHOPSO took the opportunity to ask Quentin Lee, the founding festival director and a winner of the 2024 Canadian Screen Awards, a few questions.
Why and how did you start Yale in Hollywood Fest?
QL: It was 2020 when the world has shut down because of COVID. As part of the Yale and Yale in Hollywood community, I thought of starting a virtual film festival that could uplift and connect the Yale community and beyond. I told president Kevin Winston of Yale in Hollywood who said it was great idea. I recruited Melissa Dawn Johnson and Hannah Ruth Earl and three of us started the first festival and are still running the fifth.
Now that the pandemic is over, have you thought of making it a larger in-person festival?
QL: While this year we are having an in-person launch party sponsored by St. Felix Hollywood, which we are extremely grateful for, I do feel it is important to keep the festival a virtual film festival so we can reach Yale alums and community worldwide.
Can you address if people say Yale in Hollywood Fest sounds “elitist”?
QL: Honestly, we started Yale in Hollywood Fest as a community support to the Yale filmmaking community because I know how hard it is to get your film shown at major festivals. I was lucky enough to have my first feature Shopping for Fangs premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, my third feature Ethan Mao world premiere at the AFI Fest… and most recently pitching my series Morning, Paris! at Series Mania Forum. Yale in Hollywood Fest is about creating a platform for and uplifting the Yale filmmaking community, which is anything but elitist.
Can you talk about the line-up of films this year?
QL: Our line-up changes every year… sometimes we have a few feature films and sometimes just have shorts. We are a film festival 100% driven by submissions. I’m particularly excited this year because we get to present Midas, the first feature film made by our first year’s award winner TJ Noel-Sullivan. I thought this alien-themed short film “Knead” was extremely hilarious and unexpected. I also very much enjoyed “BRETT WAS A F*CK” which is a short thriller about a few friends from a secret society, which I could never be part of as I went to Yale as a graduate student. That film felt so real… and that it could really happen… and totally tickled my fascination with those secret society buildings that I’ve passed by walking to classes as a Yale student.
Is Yale in Hollywood Fest for everyone or just the Yale affiliated community?
The festival is for everyone and it’s free to the world. I would love for anyone to check out these films that we find so relevant. Yale has a program called Yale Day of Service which I’ve never felt good enough to participate as I’m not the person to plant a plant or something. I’m best doing what I know best as a veteran independent filmmaker… and Yale in Hollywood Fest is basically my Yale Day of Service every year.
Watch all films of Yale in Hollywood Fest on their website YIHfest.com!
