Our History

The Parabox Montclair International Film Festival started a decade ago with a television, a pull-down screen and a handful of filmmakers in a basement. Sticking to a grassroots, bare-minimum philosophy, filmmakers Rob Moretti and Danielle Capawanna were satisfied with their digs of the small rehearsal space at 8 Park Street Studios for the first gathering of the independently run festival.

The rehearsal studio downstairs was turned into a movie theater for the night.  “We never expected the turn-out we got," Moretti said of the first screening. “A lot of people kept asking, ‘when are you going to have it again?’  So we did”.

The Parabox Montclair International Film Festival has literally come up from the basement, graced the halls of the former historic Wellmont Theater and now resides at its new home, Luna Stage. In addition to Luna, the main venue, it has branched out to other neighboring locations such as Clearview’s Claridge Cinemas, the Montclair Public Library and Trumpets Jazz Club.  Although a film festival of this nature is still considered innovative by most, Moretti and Capawanna’s concept isn't that unusual to an independent filmmaker. With the increasing number of independent movies produced, and with submissions to film festivals at an all-time high (some festivals claim their submission rate is up 100% from the year before), many independent filmmakers have abandoned their dreams of stardom (for the time being), and opted for an independent marketing route: self-distribution, internet streaming, and DVD sales.

But the most popular trend among resourceful filmmakers looking for support is to reach out to their own community. Moretti and Capawanna joined a small group of filmmakers looking for alternatives to the system. The solution: they created their own film festival.

And the list of filmmaker run festivals is growing. Even media based darlings like the Utah-based Slamdance, which receives over 1,600 submissions a year, and the New York Underground Film Festival, which receives upward of 1000 submissions, were conceived for one reason: disgruntled filmmakers were looking for a place to show their work.

Does this mean that Montclair might become the next Mecca for film moguls? Anything can happen.