Delmarva day at Rehoboth Beach International Film festival

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del.– This week marks the 28th annual Rehoboth Beach International Film Festival with Monday being Delmarva day.

Board member of the Rehoboth Beach film society, Lisa Black shares the mission behind the Rehoboth Beach film society.

“We started Delmarva day about three years ago and we’ve really built it to what it is today,” Black said. “However, for us it has always been about bringing the community together through the art of cinema.”

The festival highlighted many Delmarva artists including filmmaker of Crab Theory Willy Conley.

Conley tells WMDT what it’s like being a deaf artist.

“I would say some of the challenges of a deaf filmmaker would be using someone that’s familiar with the deaf culture,” Conley said. “In general hearing evaluators don’t always understand the cultural nuances within the script so oftentimes I would get a lot of rejections because of it.”

Conley also shared that he hopes viewers take away from the film is that perseverance is the key when it comes to achieving your dreams.

“There were some comments that I had received before the film was released regarding Crab Theory, people thought it would be a negative impact on the deaf community and that as a result hearing people would look down at the deaf community because of that,” Conley said. “I really wanted to show that there is a way around that and we can all support each other and we can all be successful.”

The Rehoboth International Film festival runs until November 8th, bringing together filmmakers, movie lovers, and the community together to celebrate the power of storytelling.