ABOUT CAYUGA FILM FESTIVAL
Steve Keeler, Angela Daddabbo and Carey Eidel had been talking about starting a film festival in the historic Cayuga County for years. Auburn NY is rich, not only in breweries and coffee shops, but in its history in film and human rights.
The homes and works of abolitionist Harriet Tubman, New York State Senator, William Seward, and Theodore Case, the inventor of the first commercial recording sound machine, are located in Auburn while the beginnings of the suffrage movement began just miles away in Seneca Falls. These notable figures and historic events are what inspired the Cayuga Film Festival.
In 2019, when Steve, Carey and Angela met again, they brought in CCC/Ithaca College alum, Juliette Zygarowicz to plan a film festival that highlights the film works of high school, college and emerging filmmakers. We invite you to submit your film, whether a documentary or fictional drama, comedy, thriller or short animation.
For more details about submitting a film, click here. Questions about volunteering and donations, please visit our contact page.
Festival Producers
Cayuga Community College, a unit of the State University of New York (SUNY), offers 2-year associate’s degrees in Media Communications, Media Production, Audio, and Music Recording and Telecommunications Technology. Additional degree concentrations in Broadcast Journalism, Film and Cinema Studies, Video/ Digital Film Production, Public Relations, and Social Media Communications are also available.
Auburn Public Theater enriches the social, cultural and economic growth of our region by bringing people together through affordable access to live performance, cinema, arts education and community events. Since its founding in 2005, Auburn Public Theater has welcomed more than 150,000 patrons to experience year-round programming in our multi-venue performing arts and community center.
Festival Board of Directors
Festival Director
Juliette Zygarowicz
Juliette Zygarowicz’s passion for filmmaking dates back to her middle school years, filming skits on her tiny digital camera.
Now twenty-something, Juliette has graduated from Cayuga Community College and Ithaca College and has written and directed three award-winning student short films that have been screened in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and all over CNY. She is also the owner of Juliette Zyg Picture Studios, which specializes in wedding/elopement/lifestyle photography and videography.
Executive Festival Director
Steve Keeler
SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Steve Keeler is the director of the Cayuga Community College School of Media and the Arts and was instrumental in its creation. He is also the director of the college’s programs in Media Communications and Telecommunications.
He is known for his leadership and innovation in media and arts education, technology, online learning, curriculum development, and entrepreneurship education.
Executive Director of
Auburn Public Theater
Carey Eidel
Carey Eidel is a founding member and Executive Director of Auburn Public Theater (APT) and holds a B.A. in theater from Bucknell University. He is a graduate of The Neighborhood Playhouse in NYC, where he studied under Sanford Meisner and Wynn Handman. Following a career in television and film, he teaches screenwriting and film production as an adjunct professor at Cayuga Community College. Carey a member of The Screen Actors Guild/American FeRA) and Actors Equity Association (AEA).
Artistic Director of
Auburn Public Theater
Angela Daddabbo
Angela Daddabbo is a graduate of Auburn High School and Wellesley College. After college, she moved to Tokyo where she lived and worked for three years. She was one of the founders of Hysterik Theatre, a production company which began as ten actors assembled to produce a single run of Accidental Death of an Anarchist and quickly grew into a group of eighty actors, directors, designers and theater professionals of all stripes.
After Tokyo, Angela moved to Los Angeles where she worked in the entertainment industry for nine years. She produced several plays, assisted a literary agent, several television writers, film producers and produced two films of her own. One was a short film, and the other was a feature film starring Steve Zahn and Josh Hamilton titled, Freak Talks About Sex. Angela moved home in 2001 and returned to her passion for live theater by co-founding Auburn Public Theater. She has worked as the Artistic Producing Director there for fifteen years.