Brooklyn Film Festival is undergoing a change in leadership with the departure of its founder and Executive Director, Marco Ursino and the Director of Development, Susan Mackell as of September 17, 2025.
The Interim Executive Director will be Gabriele Caroti and new leadership for the festival will be announced soon.
While Ursino has stepped down as ED, he will remain involved with the festival as Director Emeritus.
The 29th Edition of the festival is slated to run May 29th – June 7th, 2026.
Ursino said, “I left Torino (Italy) in 1988 following a beautiful ‘American dream’ and after 38 years in the States, I feel that it is time for me to return to my roots. Although I will remain connected to BFF in several ways, I am excited at the idea of exploring my creativity and experience from the other side of the Atlantic.”
Since the inception of the first festival he founded in 1998, through the last one in 2025, Marco has always taken the role of Executive Director. His passion for filmmaking and his growing involvement with the independent film industry resulted in the realization of the “Williamsburg Brooklyn Film Festival” in 1998. In 2002, Marco started a partnership with the Brooklyn Museum and changed the name of the festival to “Brooklyn International Film Festival.” Marco re-branded the festival once more in 2010 as “Brooklyn Film Festival,” an international, competitive festival, held in multiple venues and online, that receives more than 3,500 film submissions from 130 countries every year. Recently, the festival that Marco founded in ’98 was included in Final Cut Magazine’s list of the top 50 Best Festivals in the World.
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