Breaking Down Pittsburgh’s Film Festivals with Film Pittsburgh’s Shanna Carrick
Like all cinephiles and movie lovers, Film Pittsburgh Executive Director Shanna Carrick’s love for the medium started with her parents’ collection. Xanadu, on LaserDisc, played a pivotal role in making Carrick fall in love with movies. So much so that she has Olivia Newton-John holding a LaserDisc tattooed on her arm.
Courtesy of Film Pittsburgh
“I saw Xanadu and Grease on LaserDisc when I was maybe five, and they blew my mind. Especially Xanadu, because it has that animation interlude in the middle. There was laser rot on the disc, so the animation part was glitchy. It was this combination of neon ’80s, beautiful Greek mythology, synth pop music, and glitching media. I was like, that's what the inside of my head looks like.”
Prior to taking the Executive Director position at Film Pittsburgh, Carrick was working at Deep Local, a job she loved. Around the same time the job at Film Pittsburgh opened, Carrick was offered a position at Carnegie Mellon, which would have given her a more stable job with traditional hours.
“In The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath says, ‘sitting under the fig tree, I saw all the paths before me, and then all the figs just dropped, rotting off the tree.’ I think about that a lot. I had three figs before me, and it was staying at this job that I absolutely loved, a job at Carnegie Mellon, and the third fig is the one I've always been working toward. I've always wanted to be a nonprofit executive director. This is what the marathon of my career has always been leaning up to, and to have it be an arts organization that's film-focused…film is so ingrained into my bones.”
Film Pittsburgh was founded in 1994 with a single festival – JFilm. The May 2026 event marked the 33rd iteration of the JFilm Festival, which focuses on movies about Jewish heritage, history, and contemporary stories. More recently, Carrick says festival programming has shifted to include films that embody the Jewish value of repairing the world.
“JFilm is the largest Jewish cultural event in the city, and it's accessible to everyone. You don't have to be Jewish to come to it. It’s a collection of new independent films. It's a festival that's meant to make everyone feel good about how we can keep proceeding in life together, in community.”
Since the closure of Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Film Pittsburgh has become the steward of the Three Rivers Film Festival. Three Rivers takes place each November and is a celebration of independent filmmaking in both feature and short formats. The event also includes a script competition and a filmmakers’ conference that has grown significantly in the past few years. Tina Romero was one of the keynote speakers for the event last year. Tina is the daughter of Pittsburgh horror legend George A. Romero and she recently released the glamtastic zombie comedy Queens of the Dead, which stars Jack Haven of recent Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma fame.
Courtesy of Film Pittsburgh
One of the most exciting additions to this year’s Three Rivers Film Festival, taking place at theaters around the city from November 4 - 15, is the Romero Award. Named to honor George and Suzanne, this award will be given to the best horror feature of the festival.
If you can’t wait until November to catch a local film festival, Film Pittsburgh has you covered with ReelAbilities, running from September 3 - 13. This national program began in 2007, and Pittsburgh has been a host for the event since 2013, with accessible venues across the city.
“ReelAbilities celebrates the breadth of human experience through the lens of disability and inclusivity. These movies are so important that they need to be programmed year round. We decided to host ReelAbilities as a virtual festival, and we’re also putting those films into the Three Rivers Film Festival and JFilm.”
On September 3, you can catch a screening of seven short films and celebrate Tina Calabro, who will receive the 8th annual Meritzer Award. Calabro is a local writer, speaker, and self-described “connector” in the disability community.
For those who can’t make it in person, but are still interested in seeing new movies, ReelAbilities will also be presented as a virtual festival. As great as it is to be with other people in a darkened theater, sometimes it’s nice to stay in while still watching something brand new.
“One film I would like to highlight is Becoming Benjamin Lee, which was made locally by Tony Buba and Marcus Rediker. We are so honored to present that. Originally, it was a Quantum Theater production telling the story of a Quaker who changed the world through his compassion. He was also living as a little person before we had the language to talk about that. This advocate, this friend in telling his story, is really wonderful.”
Carrick describes Pittsburgh as “this secret third thing.” The city has never pretended to be like New York or Los Angeles, and it’s proud of its grittiness and DIY nature. Much like the aforementioned big cities, though, Pittsburgh has been used as a filming location for plenty of movies of various scales. As a multigenerational, lifelong Pittsburgher, Carrick laments how few movies shot and set here capture the essence of the city.
“Sometimes Pittsburgh is the joke. Like, I got lost in Pittsburgh, I drove by Pittsburgh. It's not a flyover state. We're an amazing culture with our own accents and our own dialect. I don't think we’re lacking a Pittsburgh movie. There are Pittsburgh movies out there. If you’re from out of state and you ask me what growing up and living in Pittsburgh in a yinzer family is like, see Sticks by Dean Bog and Reed Agnew.”
“Anytime somebody tries to make a big-budget Pittsburgh movie and get the accent right, it's kind of like Pittsburgh's the setting, but you're not really getting the fabric. It becomes a parody of itself. I think we need to stop trying to make Pittsburgh a character, and instead show the breadth of different cultures that make Pittsburgh interesting.”
The one film Carrick thinks best captures Pittsburgh?
“Inspector Gadget, that's where my brain always goes.”
When looking to the future, Carrick isn’t thinking about herself. She says she has no intention of “dying in this position.” She views her time as Executive Director of Film Pittsburgh a bit like a movie director would approach a new work. Ultimately, what they’re creating doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to the viewer, you and me, sitting in those theater seats, having their world expanded with each new movie.
“I hope over the next five, ten years I keep growing this festival to the point where it’s nationally recognized for the talent that's in Pittsburgh. That we keep growing as a cinema city and then these filmmakers come and they see how Pittsburgh has so many different eras of architecture to film in. If I leave this position one day and I leave Pittsburgh maybe one day, it's important to me to be proud of the progress the festival has made and to be able to hand it off to someone in a very structured, clear form.”
With ReelAbilities days away and Three Rivers on the horizon, Carrick has a message to all those who may be nervous about the idea of attending a film festival.
“Get out of your house, get some popcorn, go see something completely new and surprising. That experience of watching something that’s not available to stream, rent, or on physical media, it's ephemeral, and you're in community with your neighbors. Bring some friends. What a great date idea. Wow, a film fest. Hey, babe, you want to go to the film festival? It's only $15 per ticket. Maybe hear a Q&A afterward. Maybe go for a drink. Talk about what you saw. It doesn't matter if you loved it or you hated it. You experienced something. If it made you feel any way at all, we did our job.”
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