North Fork TV Festival Teams Up With Long Island’s Founding Vineyard For Fifth Annual Festival

The North Fork TV Festival – a celebration of independent television and the innovative minds of executives, directors, writers and actors – will hold its fifth iteration on Saturday, October 17. The drive-in event will take place at the Castello di Borghese Vineyard in Cutchogue.

“2020 has been a year no one expected, but we are proud to have found a safe way to celebrate the 2020 North Fork TV Festival at the Borghese Vineyard with our great community and partners,” festival founder Noah Doyle said. “This year’s festivities will feature great conversations, screenings and more from the socially distanced comfort of your car. We look forward to seeing everyone in the North Fork this October.”

The North Fork TV Festival prides itself on highlighting the best independent TV from around the world. This year, the festival will premiere Freeze and Slayed by Divya, who both won the 2020 competition for independent pilots. Elisa DiStefano, Emmy-nominated entertainment reporter for News 12 Long Island, will moderate a Q&A with the filmmakers after the pilot screenings.

Freeze is a thriller web series by director, writer and producer Maya Albanese and producer Valerie Steinberg. It tells the story of Joy, whose fairytale romance crashes and burns on the eve of her 35th birthday, which amplifies the tick-tock of her biological clock and leads her to try new experiences. Slayed by Divya is a dramedy by director and producer Van Maximilian Carlson and writer Ni Belete, which tells the story of a mobile hair stylist who struggles to expand her business.

This year’s festival is juried by Blue Bloods star Abigail Hawk; science fiction screenwriter, director, and showrunner Rockne S. O’Bannon; and Christina Wayne, Principal International Creative Executive at Amazon Studios.

The festival will also screen a preview of the pilot of Superuser Do by Sundanese-American filmmaker Zuff Idries, which won the second annual Alfred P. Sloan Science + Tech Pilot Script Competition. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awards grants in science, technology and economics. The competition invites writers to submit pilot television scripts that are focused on science and technology, while challenging the stereotypes about scientists and engineers.

“Since its inception as Long Island’s first-ever established vineyard, Borghese Vineyard has been a huge proponent of the arts,” Giovanni Borghese, Co-Owner of Castello di Borghese Vineyard said. “We’re delighted to partner with the North Fork TV Festival and welcome everyone to Long Island’s founding vineyard.”

The festival will provide designated parking spaces for each vehicle, set at least six feet apart and require masks not only of patrons, but of all employees and volunteers. Food and drink from local vendors will also be available for purchase via contactless payment, placed from within individual vehicles.

Parking will open at 5:30 p.m., food will go on sale at 6:00 p.m. and the program will start promptly at 7:00 p.m.

Tickets are $20 per vehicle and are available for purchase online.

Castello di Borghese Vineyard is located at 17150 County Road 48 in Cutchogue. For more information, visit www.northfork.tv.