On Nov. 10, over 100 international and independent films will be screening in various places around downtown Wilmington. People from all over the world will be flooding the recently restored Thalian Hall to watch films ranging from documentaries, shorts, and features.

UNCW student and Cucalorus intern Morgan Lear said, “It’s a celebration of cinema for the filmmakers and the audience. The festival bridges that gap between the audience and filmmakers. I think the ability to watch a film that you really enjoyed and afterwards being able to have a one on one conversation with the filmmaker is a truly inspiring experience.  It unites artists and establishes an environment that births and nourishes creativity.  What does it mean to me? To me, Cucalorus represents everything I love about cinema.”

Cucalorus is a non-competitive festival focused on supporting innovative artists and encouraging creative exchange. They believe that ideas should not be owned by people and it takes hundreds of people to make a film, and not just one to receive the award.

Chase Kliber, a recent UNCW graduate, will be showing a film in the upcoming festival. “The film in question is a short documentary entitled ‘Laugh, And Love Life’. It was created as part of an FST 497 internship where I worked under Tammy Arnold, an industry vetted actress and dialogue coach. The film is about a small laughter yoga club in Charlotte, N.C.,” said Kliber.

“I first heard about laughter yoga in my freshman year at UNCW, when I was taking an overview course on world cinema…I immediately started looking for a local club, but very few seemed to have sprung up stateside. It was very much to my interest, some three years later, when my mother called me to say that she’d just attended a laughter yoga class. Upon meeting the guru, I knew that he was an excellent subject for a short doc on the movement’s presence in America.” This will be Kliber’s fifth year going to Cucalorus.

Additional films being shown during the festival include “The Other F Word,” “The Wise Kid,” “Semper Fi: Always Faithful” and dramatic feature, “Our Day Will Come (Notre Jour Viendra).”

The Cucalorus festival is held each November in historic downtown Wilmington and screens 150 films from around the world.