FirstGlance Film festivals began in 1996 in the basement of a small theater in Center City Philadelphia. It started as a small theatre company in Philadelphia that wanted to help fellow filmmakers get their projects shown in a public venue for others to enjoy. Its mission was a one time weekend to show projects that might otherwise not be seen by moviegoers in the Philadelphia area. With a rented video projector and a bunch of large screen TVs, they had a successful weekend showing about 20 projects to about 150 people. After the event they received multiple calls and emails from filmmakers and attendees. The FirstGlance Film Festival was born. FirstGlance decided to move forward and make its festival an annual event. With filmmaker interest, their sister festival opened in Burbank California in 2000 to a similar audience in a 35 seat screening room and has also become a growing annual event.

To date, FirstGlance has produced twenty two festivals, shown over 1100 award winning films to over 26,000 attendees and has grown to 250 seat venues with state of the art projection capabilities.

In addition to producing their award winning bi-coastal film festivals, FirstGlance has year round activities that include Feature & Short Screenplay Competitions, On-line Film Competitions, Show Us Your Shorts Screenings, Short Film Productions, and Online Distribution.

Additionally, FirstGlance has inked a deal to create a new distribution platform and offer FirstGlance Alumni RED CARPET theatrical premieres in Las Vegas.

Message from FirstGlance

FirstGlance Film Festivals would not be possible without indie filmmakers making great films!  Independent film festivals would not exist without your perseverance, hard work, and your loyal and undying vision to create art the way YOU want without the assistance of big studios and outside investors.  We salute you for that and thank you for your consideration and support of our events and website.  

FirstGlance looks forward to showing many more indie films to new audiences through the festivals, website, and partnerships with online distributors and to bringing new opportunities to filmmakers that no other festivals in the world can.

Principals

William Ostroff - Festival Director

Andrea DiFabio - VP Communications and Public Relations

Tai Fauci - VP of Programming, Screenplay Competitions Manager