The founder and executive director of the region’s biggest programmer of film festivals has announced her retirement after a quarter-century on the job.
Kathryn Spitz Cohan founded Film Pittsburgh as an outgrowth of running the Pittsburgh International Jewish-Israeli Film Festival, now known as JFilm. The group currently organizes festivals including the long-running JFilm, the venerable Three Rivers Film Festival and newer showcases of its own creation, including Pittsburgh Shorts, ReelAbilities Pittsburgh and Teen Screen.
The retirement announcement came Thursday. The nonprofit group has begun the search for a new executive director. Spitz Cohan will conclude her tenure June 30 — after this year’s 31st annual JFilm, which begins April 24.
“What Kathryn has done during her nearly 25 years at Film Pittsburgh has been tremendous,” Film Pittsburgh board chair Daryl Hutson said in a statement. “We have a reputation for excellent programming, we’re financially strong, and we have some truly special projects on the horizon. The organization is looking for someone who can strategically build on this solid foundation and lead us into the future.”
Spitz Cohan was hired as a part-timer to run JFilm in 2001. Inspired by her work as an educator with the University of Pittsburgh’s Shakespeare in the Schools program, she created Teen Screen in 2005 to bring students to JFilm screenings. It’s since grown into its own program to bring films and film experts to middle and high school classrooms. The group says Teen Screen now reaches more than 25,000 students and educators.
ReelAbilities, which showcases films by and about people with disabilities, premiered in 2013. Pittsburgh Shorts, which screens short films from around the world and doubles as a conference for emerging filmmakers, debuted in 2017.
And in 2020, Film Pittsburgh took over the Three Rivers Film Festival, which had been run for decades by the now-defunct Pittsburgh Filmmakers. Three Rivers remains the region’s largest showcase for new feature-length independent and foreign-language films. (The 2020 Three Rivers festival, the first held under Film Pittsburgh, took place during the pandemic, and was actually a virtually screened blend of several of the group’s festivals.)
Festival screenings are typically spread among a variety of theaters, including Downtown’s Harris Theater, Sewickley’s Lindsay Theater, Oakmont’s Oaks Theater and Carnegie Mellon’s McConomy Auditorium.
When Spitz Cohan founded Film Pittsburgh, she was its lone employee. The group, headquartered in Swissvale, now employs 11, with a budget of about $800,000.
In retirement, Spitz Cohan will continue serving as vice president on the national trade organization Film Festival Alliance’s Board of Directors.
“I believe independent filmmakers have their fingers on the pulse of what’s happening in the world, and that film is a powerful medium for change,” she said in a statement. “I look forward to giving back to the film festival sector as well as staying involved in the Pittsburgh arts community.”
