About Us

Welcome to the Fairhope Film Festival!

The Fairhope Film Festival is a film lover’s film festival held each year on the second weekend in November, offering world-class, award winning films in a unique, picturesque location. Fairhope, Alabama is a quaint, beautiful and historic bayside city located on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, in the center of America’s Gulf Coast. Founded as a nineteenth century utopian experiment, Fairhope has flourished as an arts community for over 100 years.

The main festival venues are walking distance of each other around our famous, flower-filled downtown area (“Carmel by the Bay”) convenient to restaurants, hotels, locally owned shops and the town bluffs, which boast sweeping views of the 413 square mile Mobile Bay.

Our festival’s focus is on national and international film festival competition finalists of the past year: the “best of the best” in cinema arts. Notable foreign and feature films, documentaries and shorts—many that never made it to the big box theaters or were only there briefly—will be selected for appreciative audiences.

Although our festival pulls out all the stops “Southern-style” to host opening and closing events and parties, our emphasis is on the art of filmmaking and the experience of seeing exceptional films. We invite directors, actors, screenwriters and other film industry professionals to participate in the screenings both in person and via live electronic transmission.

Our festival is only possible due to the dedicated efforts of our board and committe members, our hard working team of festival volunteers, the generosity and support of our individuals, businesses and charitable organizations in our community. We look forward to having you join us at our next festival!

Greetings From Our Mayor

Welcome to Fairhope for the 10th Annual Fairhope Film Festival.

I am so happy you have chosen to visit our City for this exciting festival. Fairhope has always been known as an arts community, and this festival is a good example of how diverse the arts community truly is in Fairhope. As you enjoy the award-winning films presented during the next few days, take time to explore our City and see all that Fairhope has to offer through shopping, dining and the many nature parks and trails.

I hope you enjoy your stay and make plans to come back soon!

Sherry Sullivan, Mayor
City of Fairhope

Fairhope Film Festival Board of Directors

Mary Riser, President
Richard F. Pate
Marion Walker
Marshall Riser
Kenneth Niemeyer, In-Counsel

Honorary Board of Directors

Prudence Farrow Bruns
Tera Buerkle
Scott Lumpkin