The Challenges of Film Festivals and Other Things: A Chat with CFF’s Nancy Tabor

As the executive director of the Chesapeake Film Festival for the last three years, Nancy Tabor has faced two remarkable challenges during that time.

The first, of course, was the health of the Chesapeake Film Festival during a raging health pandemic. For many arts organizations, including film festival, it was a life or death matter. With in-person film screenings out of the question, which resulted in a severe decline in revenue, the CFF, like its peers, has had to reinvent itself to stay alive.

For the CFF, that meant going with a virtual festival on the web, partnering with other organizations for other non-traditional programming, and seeking more creative ways to attract grant funding.

With a certain degree of satisfaction in her voice, Nancy reports in our Spy chat with her the other day that all that hard work has paid off splendidly for the CFF.

In fact, she reports that the finances of the nonprofit have never been better while philanthropy has soared. And in her mind, the organization has never been in a stronger position as it finalizes plans for its in-person festival starting September 30. She highlights some of the key moments of this year’s program and other unique ways that the CFF is fulfilling its mission.

The second challenge for Nancy remains an agonizing one that has not yet been resolved. For some time now, she has been aware that her own life is at risk if she is not successful in finding a kidney donor soon. Suffering from a lifetime of kidney problems since having an adverse reaction to prescribed medication, Nancy must now be her best advocate to spread the word about her circumstances. She talks candidly about her condition and the need for specific donor requirements.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about the Chesapeake Film Festival please go here. 

To volunteer for being a living kidney donor, please call Johns Hopkins at 410-614-9345 and reference Nancy’s birthdate of December 11, 1961 for additional information. She can also be reached by email at [email protected].