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03/26/2014 09:00 AMOver the past 16 years, Georgina (Gina) Capristo-Gajdosik has been a passionate force on the Connecticut film and music scene. While her career has taken her everywhere from New York to Scotland, her latest project takes place closer to home: the March 28 and 29 New Haven International Film Festival.
Gina is one of the founders of the brand-new festival with Tom Carruthers, who is also the executive director of the Connecticut Film Festival.
She found out about the opportunity in a somewhat unusual way.
“Tom approached me about this project while he and my husband were rock climbing,” Gina says.
Gina’s husband, Peter, works as an engineer and is an avid outdoorsman who frequently goes rock- and ice-climbing.
Gina feels fortunate to be able to help bring this new venture to downtown New Haven.
“I love this area. It brings back such good memories of hanging out here in the ’80s at the height of the punk-rock era,” she says.
The festival will turn the New Haven area into little Hollywood with two days and nights of more than 100 independent films, workshops, panels, industry networking, and premiere after-parties.
The festival will even have a short film competition during those two days at Gateway Community College—visit www.newhavenfilmfestival.com for more information.
Gina also owns her own company, Visual Music, Inc. She describes it as “a media company focused on content with a music slant.” Gina organizes and creates soundtracks for TV and film.
Gina began her career in 1985 managing the creative production, promotion, and trade elements for profitable media campaigns for brand giants such as Hormel Foods, Campbell’s Soup, and Dial Soap. She entered the constantly changing film industry environment in 1998, working in the capacity of a writer, producer, location manager, and location scout, and hasn’t looked back.
In 2002, Gina and her family moved to North Haven to immerse her daughter, Molly, in the schooling the town had to offer, and they’ve been there ever since.
Her daughter graduated from North Haven High School as well as attending the Educational Center for the Arts magnet school—like mother, like daughter.
In 2003, Gina produced the film Loved, Alone, which featured Beth Winslet (sister of actress Kate Winslet) in her first leading role and co-starred UK Television star Alexis Conran. Shot in Scotland, Loved, Alone premiered at the Los Angeles Shorts Festival and screened in a number of U.S. cities before landing with Sky TV in the United Kingdom.
Gina is presently producing her first feature, a project she’s passionate about. It’s an award-winning screenplay she penned, Make Me Blush, which was the first-place winner in the 2011 New York Filmmaker’s Festival and also was a semifinalist in the Filmmakers International Screenwriting Awards.
She describes the project as a “crazy, quirky, funny, and smart musical film” about a New York artist’s artistic and spiritual awakening.
The film is scheduled to shoot in 2014 in New York City with possibly, as she describes it, “a very well-known pop star in the lead, and my hopes are to bring it to Broadway as well.”
Gina is also very excited to have been hired to adapt Rachel Reiland’s Get Me Out of Here for the screen. It’s a gripping memoir about struggle and overcoming borderline personality disorder.
One of Gina’s future dreams is to instill her love of screenwriting into the next generation, by hopefully teaching this subject at Gateway Community College.
In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and catching up with her daughter, who now lives in Brooklyn.