Denver Film Festival

The Denver Film Festival is held in November, primarily at the Denver Film Center/Colfax, in Denver, Colorado, now the Anna and John J. Sie FilmCenter (Sie FilmCenter). Premiere events are held in the Buell Theatre and Ellie Caulkins Opera House at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Before 2012, It was held in the Tivoli Union on the Auraria Campus.

The festival features a diverse selection of films, ranging from independent to commercial from all over the world and is well attended by filmmakers. The festival is currently managed by the Denver Film Society and sponsored by Starz.

The first festival was held on May 4, 1978, and featured such films as Annie Hall, The Fury, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Hills Have Eyes and Pretty Baby. The festival kicked off with a 90-minute clip compilation from Warner Bros. titled ‘The Movies That Made Us.’ The festival was originally conceived and founded by Peter Warren, Ph.D., then a professor of mathematics at the University of Denver and by Irene Clurman, then the art critic for the Rocky Mountain News. The first artistic director was Ron Hecht, the manager of the Vogue theatre.

In the early years, Ron Henderson served as marketing director and subsequently as artistic director. Henderson recalls "There were no red carpets and no television cameras out front. We did a ribbon cutting with Dick Lamm (then governor). When we got inside it was a full house at the Old Centre theater, which was demolished before the next year's festival. (The Centre sat 1,200.).

"Most notably, the weather was ominous - cloudy and cool. The opening-night party was at a private house and it was an invitational affair. When we got there, a cold rain was falling. We woke up the next morning, and there was a foot of wet snow on the ground, but it was springtime and by the end of the day, it was beautiful.

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