LAST WORD

Nicole Gregg, director of the New Hampshire Film Festival, believes the "sky is the limit" for the festival's growth. Michael McCord photo

Simply put, Nicole Gregg has a unique job. It requires a certain dedication, a love for an unforgiving and seductive industry, and a lot of time to prepare for a one-shot, four-day explosion of activity.

Gregg also carefully reviews hundreds of resumes in the form of movies — short films, full-length feature films, documentaries, and animation shorts that come from around the world.

"You should see the stack of DVDs at our home," said Gregg, the director of the New Hampshire Film Festival, which will have its seventh edition October 11-14 in Portsmouth. I talked with Gregg recently to find out what this former events manager for the Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce was up to.

It seems she and the festival (which had a name change from New Hampshire Film Expo) are on the move and more popular than ever. Popular with local and international filmmakers who have sent in a record number of submissions this year "" including one from Mongolia. Popular with the public. Popular with the downtown business community. Popular with a growing number of national film distributors who have the film festival on their radar screens. And very popular with its corporate sponsors such as Irving Oil/Blue Canoe, which, Gregg happily admits, has allowed the festival to evolve and become a vital part of Portsmouth's cultural scene.

"The sky's the limit," Gregg told me about the the festival's prospects. "We are really creating visibility for ourselves and the industry is taking notice."

Now that notice won't likely translate into turning the New Hampshire Film Festival into a Cannes or Sundance, major international film festivals, but Gregg believes the event can become a solid mid-level festival that draws filmmakers eager for exposure and for enjoying the cultural quaintness and sophistication of downtown Portsmouth "" with film viewing venues as different as The Music Hall or the downstairs of Muddy River Smokehouse.

Gregg is no stranger to the ups and downs and excitable moments of the business. Before arriving in Portsmouth in 2002, Gregg worked for New York-based production studio Shooting Gallery, rising from intern to assistant casting director. One of the studio's major finds was casting Mark Ruffalo in the Academy Award-nominated film "You Can Count on Me." She had her first exposure to the power of a film festival at Rotterdam, Holland, and it left a major impression on her.

Gregg said the studio got caught up in the dot.com boom of the late 1990s.

"We got inflated and excited and then went bust," Gregg said about the demise of her company and her job. "No one was hiring casting directors."

Gregg became adept at making lemonade from lemons. She and her husband, Zac, moved to the Seacoast region and Gregg landed at the chamber. The original New Hampshire Film Festival had been a small affair based in Manchester and Derry, but it moved to the Seacoast in 2004 and Gregg took immediate notice.

"I saw a lot of potential for growth and popularity," said Gregg about the crossroads of her talent (and restless ambition) and opportunity. She left the chamber in 2005 and later became the film festival's sole full-time employee, main cheerleader, and fund-raiser. She has seen the volunteer staff rise to meet demand and it didn't hurt that the contacts she built at the chamber were receptive to her vision.

In addition to Irving's Blue Canoe, Gregg has secured support from more than three dozen local and regional sponsors, large and small, such as Infinite Imaging, Provident Bank, Hilton Garden Inn, Smuttynose Brewing, Sheraton Harborside Portsmouth, Chinburg Builders, The Sports Page, and Bailey Works.

The New Hampshire Film Festival is one of 2,000 such festivals in the country. Gregg said the Nantucket Film Festival is her inspiration model for how a festival can make a name by itself by utilizing local resources and creating value for the community at large.

"Film festivals are leading the way in cultural tourism," said Gregg, who was named one of New Hampshire Magazine's Remarkable Women of 2007. "There's nothing else like it."