Fairhope Film Festival Names Stephen Savage Chair After Founder's Retirement

When Mary Riser founded the Fairhope Film Festival in 2012, she was building on something she had already been doing for 14 years. The former college literature professor launched a monthly screening series in 1998, driven by the conviction that Fairhope audiences deserved more than what the big-box theaters were offering. She curated 24 English-speaking and foreign films a year, eventually gathered like-minded collaborators around her, and grew the whole project into a proper festival. Now someone else will carry it forward.

The festival named Stephen Savage as chair of its board of directors following Riser's retirement, closing a founding-era chapter and opening a new one under a figure with deep roots in both the organization and the broader Fairhope creative community. Savage is not simply an administrator stepping into the role; he has screened four of his own narrative short films through the festival's programming and has spent years embedded in the local arts ecosystem as a photographer, filmmaker, and nonprofit executive.

"I'm honored to follow in the footsteps of Mary Riser and to serve an organization she built with such care and purpose," Savage said. "The Fairhope Film Festival has a meaningful legacy, and I look forward to working with Melanie, the board and our community to build on that foundation while expanding opportunities for filmmakers and audiences alike."

The "Melanie" in that statement is Melanie LeCroy, the festival's executive director, who will work alongside Savage on day-to-day operations and strategic direction. Savage's nonprofit management resume adds institutional weight to the appointment: he previously served as executive director of the Baldwin Humane Society and as executive director of the Center for the Living Arts in Mobile, now known as the Alabama Contemporary Art Center, where he guided the organization through a period of identity and restructuring.

Under Riser, the festival grew from a grassroots effort into a respected nonprofit, anchoring itself as a four-day November event with multi-venue programming clustered across walkable downtown Fairhope. The annual program features a mix of feature and short films, filmmaker panels, a red-carpet component, and structured networking. Its guiding mission, "Creating Community Through Film," has made it a reliable exhibition window for Alabama filmmakers building festival credits and regional visibility. The festival also runs a Monthly Film Series from January through May and is currently accepting submissions for its 2026 edition.

For Alabama independent filmmakers, the question now is what institutional priorities a new board chair will bring. Savage arrives having competed for festival screen time himself, which gives him an unusually grounded perspective on what filmmakers actually need from the organizations that program them.