Free two-day film festival kicks off Wednesday at Hawthorne theater

HAWTHORNE — Christopher Padula was not yet in grade school when he first set foot in the Prohibition-era movie theater on Lafayette Avenue.

It was the spring of 1977, and “Star Wars” was a blockbuster smash.

Padula will return there this week with a crowd-puller of his own — an event that is said to be the largest happening the cinema has held since it opened its doors 95 years ago.

The White Vulture Film Festival will feature 67 films, including more than 20 produced overseas. The two-day affair, which is free to the public, starts at noon on Wednesday and ends with an awards ceremony at 8 p.m. the following day at Macaluso’s Events & Banquets on Fourth Avenue.

Filmmakers from as far as Australia, Japan and Peru will show their work at the festival.

Padula, 49, of North Haledon, has spent more than a year planning the inaugural event and soliciting independent directors and producers.

The self-professed nerd said he wanted to establish a new film festival because this area is an “artistic doughnut hole.”

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Padula, a former actor and a 1991 graduate of DePaul Catholic High School in Wayne, said he believes that many film festivals are run by academics and elitists who try to force social issues. They do not care about acting performances or the eloquence of storytelling, he said.

“I really felt there was a surprising lack of festivals that were in it for the art,” Padula said. “I appreciate people who feel like they need to have a message in their films, but if a film can only exist in that context, and not on its own as a good film, it’s probably missing something.”

The term “White Vulture” comes from a dream that Padula said he had months before he ever considered hosting the film festival.

“It was very impactful in a lot of ways,” he said.

The vision of the bird stayed with Padula until, he said, someone thought to ask what he would call the film festival.

“And ‘White Vulture’ just kind of tumbled out of my mouth,” he said. “We dream as viewers, and we dream as participants — and this was one of those.”

George Sayegh, whose family has owned Hawthorne Theaters for more than four decades, said two auditoriums at the five-screen cinema will be dedicated to the film festival.

Sayegh said the event will promote the work of independent filmmakers and that it will give great exposure to the borough and its downtown.

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“Especially at a time when the experience of watching a movie in a crowded auditorium is getting lost,” Sayegh said. “We love any opportunity to bring more people here and to give them that experience.”

Padula said seven films at the festival will have connections to New Jersey.

They include “Ball & Vase,” a 32-minute movie filmed in Hoboken and North Bergen. The award-winning picture, directed by Dave Baram, stars Austin Pendleton — of “My Cousin Vinny” and “A Beautiful Mind” — as an ailing magician and widower.

Baram also directed “One All the Way,” a documentary about three elderly men in search of the world’s best Texas wiener. Their quest takes them to Paterson, and they lament the changes that have occurred in the city over generations.

The films will be shown back to back at 6 p.m. on Wednesday. For a full event schedule, visit whitevulturetheater.com.

Philip DeVencentis is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: devencentis@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Festival to show 67 films at Hawthorne Theaters starting Wednesday