.

About The New York Italian Film Festival DATES: October 24 - 26, 2008 The New York Italian Film Festival (NYIFF) was founded in June 2005 by Dove Entertainment, to preserve, protect and celebrate Italian heritage and culture, and to support the creative qualities of Italian Cinema. Objectives: It is the goal of the Film Festival to unite the United States with Italy, and allow these countries to grow through cinema. Diversity is the key to what makes this country great. Our program will add to it by showing Italian-made films, and honoring those who work to create them. Specific goals of this program include the following: To provide the U.S. community with a chance to explore Italian heritage and culture. To honor past and present directors of Italian Cinema. To give the opportunity to the different students. To give the students the opportunity to meet and interact with professionals In the 2000 U.S. Census, Italian Americans constituted the seventh largest ancestry group in America with about 15.6 million people (5.6% of the total U.S. population). New York State has the largest population of Italian Americans in the United States with 2.7 million people. Surprisingly, NYIFF will be the first major event to celebrate Italian Cinema in New York City. New York has always been known as the cultural melting pot of our country. Italian-Americans play a large part in creating the unique diversity found here. With your help, we can provide members of our community (Italian descent or no) with the opportunity to celebrate their city's heritage. The festival will include both feature films and short films, along with luncheons and dinners where attendees can meet some of the producers and directors of the films. The festival will close with an awards ceremony to honor the Best Feature Film and Best Director Feature Film. Beyond the exhibition of film, NYIFF offers an extremely unique feature: its three-day business conference designed to provide an opportunity for top Italian and American companies and organizations to forge business relationships and top discuss all other issues to obtaining overall success. The theme for the 2008 conference is "Everything Italian." We are also proud to announce Q & A sessions for all of the students, where they will have the opportunity to meet with different directors and producers.