Saturday, November 28, 2009

Film festival con artist exposed


MYFOXNY.COM - The Fox 5 Shame spotlight is focused on the founder of a local film festival. Arnold Diaz reports that some former employees are blowing the whistle on a woman with a long history of dirty business.

Some people say that the founder of the Queens International Film Festival uses the event to line her pockets. Arnold confronted her about the claims, and now a local councilman is asking authorities to investigate her business practices.

4 comments:

Auntie Invasion said...

This is what happens when you let illegal aliens in.

What is any different from what she's doing than what the day laborers, their wives and off spring are doing?

deport them all. find out if she is an illegal alien and get her out of the country.

She wouldn't be able to do things like this where she comes from.

Anonymous said...

Everyone (99.9%) skims off the top. The cashier at key food is stealing quarters and Bernie Madeoff is stealing billions.

It will NEVER stop.

Anonymous said...

unfortunately she's right... she doesn't owe a dime mustang films inc owes people money not her

she rob reincorporates every year


shoddy journalism court orders were against her company separate entity
any one can do this and get away with it

Anonymous said...

Thank you for exposing the Queens International Film Festival as a scam. It is one!

I know festivals can be disorganized at times, but this year's festival was a flat-out nightmare.

For starters, they charged filmmakers and screenwriters for an ad in a program that was never printed. That is bait and switch, false advertising (no pun intended), and outright theft.

The QIFF cancelled filmmakers' movies at the very last minute, which caused several filmmakers to cry or become infuriated because their families and friends came in just for the screening.

They lost the screeners on filmmakers, causing fights and crying to occur if the filmmakers didn't have an extra DVD on them.

They didn't notify anyone -- not even with a sign on the door or an email -- when panels were cancelled at the very last minute.

The Levon Helm Tribute was cancelled -- now people are fighting to get a refund for the tickets from the QIFF via PayPal. Marie Castaldo is claiming their ticket cost $30 instead of $50 -- she is a liar.

Marie and the volunteers kept coming up with different lies for why things were cancelled. My favorite lies:

** Martin Kove was supposed to have a panel that was unceremoniously cancelled with no notice. When asked why, the festival workers said his plane had been delayed. I told them, "He is here -- I saw him in this building last night!" The lie then became, "Oh, well, you know actors."

** A panel that was supposed to be run by reps of CAVU Pictures had two other people (not from CAVU) sitting at the table. The fest had asked them to step in at the last minute. These two new moderators told the crowd that the CAVU Pictures folks were in the hospital with food poisoning. Then the story changed a few minutes later to a "car accident." Ten minutes later, the CAVU folks showed up. They were stunned, because they had called the fest to say they were stuck in traffic and on their way! One of the new moderators left in a huff. The other one stayed, and proceeded to fall asleep at the table in front of the audience!

Marie Castaldo is a thief and liar!