Big news for the Green Mountain Film Festival came at press time today: There’s been a major changing of the guard at Focus on Film, the fest’s parent nonprofit. Donald Rae, executive director of FOF for the past six years, has stepped down, along with the rest of the board.

The board’s new president is Terrence Youk, owner of Montpelier’s Savoy Theater (pictured), who says in a press release that he sees this as “a timely opportunity to bring the Savoy under the wing of the Focus on Film nonprofit.”

Always a venue for the GMFF, the Savoy has held several public funding drives to address its financial vicissitudes in the past few years. Like many local independent theaters, it faces an uncertain future in the digital era. Is Youk taking this opportunity to rebrand the theater as a nonprofit community resource with an educational mission? Watch this space for updates.

 

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This article appears in Seven Daysies Awards 2012.

Margot Harrison is a consulting editor and film critic at Seven Days. Her film reviews appear every week in the paper and online. In 2024, she won the Jim Ridley Award for arts criticism from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. Her book reviews have also appeared in the New York Times. She is a member of the Online Film Critics Society, with reviews on the Tomatometer, and the author of five novels, including YA thrillers Only She Came Back and We Made It All Up.