09/22/2026
We did it. 🧡
The inaugural Grove & Pines Film Festival is in the books, and so many people made this first year possible.
To our Lead Sponsors, Live Nation Studios and revry, and our Festival Sponsors, The Necessary Foundation, Hoff Studios, Smosh, Dr. Justin Jones · Psychology and Stephen Tendrich, thank you for believing in what we were building and helping us bring it to life.
To our Community Partners, Whyte Hall, and the Cherry Grove Community House & Theatre, thank you for opening your doors, welcoming us in, and helping GAPFF feel at home in the communities that inspired it.
This festival would not exist without the people who helped lead it from an idea to opening night. So much love and gratitude to our Chairwoman Laura Lucchetti, Vice Chair Cory Midgarden, Treasurer Darren Gantt, board members Brad Loekle and Alex Zazzera, Auxiliary Board Member Brian Hoffer, and our app developer George Smith.
To our volunteers, collaborators, advisors, donors, vendors, crews, and friends, thank you for showing up for us. Whether you donated money or time, made an introduction, solved a problem, answered a late-night text, spread the word, bought a ticket, or joined us on Fire Island, you helped make this possible. This truly was a community effort.
And most of all, thank you to our filmmakers.
At a moment when q***r stories and voices continue to face real challenges, creating space for this work feels more important than ever. These films preserve our histories, reflect the incredible breadth of our lives, challenge assumptions, make us laugh, make us feel seen, and remind us what is possible when q***r people get to tell our own stories.
To every filmmaker who trusted a brand-new festival with your work, thank you. Your creativity, courage, humor, honesty, and point of view are the reason GAPFF exists. We are so proud to have given these stories a screen, an audience, and a place to be celebrated on Fire Island.
What started as an idea became three days of film, conversation, connection, laughter, and q***r joy across Cherry Grove and the Pines.
Year one is officially in the books. And what a beautiful beginning.
Thank you, Fire Island. We’ll see you next year.
