Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
After nearly 20 years, the founding director of the Maryland Film Festival will call it quits on Nov. 1.
Jed Dietz, 70, has been overseeing the Parkway Theatre, which was built in 1915 as the city’s newest movie place and then renovated in 2017. The $18.2 million renovations have allowed the theater to have a more modern look while still preserving its historic value, such as a proscenium arch over the theater room and a plaster chandelier hanging from the ceiling, Dietz said.
Dietz helped create the Maryland Film Festival in 1999 as a way to bring films and filmmakers together in a friendly environment. Filmmakers like Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight,” and Lena Dunham, “Girls,” have appeared over the years at the annual five-day festival that usually takes place in early May.
Sitting in a multi-color lounge with views of the Baltimore streets, Dietz, wearing a gray suit and pink shirt, talked about his life.
Born and raised in Syracuse, New York, Dietz said he always was a fan of movies.
“I’ve always liked movies as a consumer, that should be the place you want to start,” he said in an interview with The Baltimore Watchdog. “I had sort of a business background, not really art or creative background. I thought that would be the way to help me produce or do business things to help artists to create art they want to create.”
Dietz has one brother who works for the Newark Museum, so arts apparently runs in the family. In fact, Dietz’s earlier efforts include setting up an office in Los Angeles and raising “some money to help script development to get my film career started,” he said.
At the University of North Carolina, Dietz studied history. He said his parents did not work in the film industry but they were interested in movies and shows, generating a love that impacted his film career. His father worked in a family business called the Dietz’s Co., which initially made kerosene lanterns. Around World War II, the company moved into making auto parts. His mother was a housewife but worked in publishing after WWII.
The New Yorker moved to the Baltimore area about 30 years ago because of a job offer his wife, Julia McMillan, received. The couple has three children.
“My wife is a pediatrician who was recruited by [Johns] Hopkins 30 years ago to come and run their pediatric residency program,” Dietz said.
His three children have had success up to this point, he said. His daughter also is a pediatrician and lives in Baltimore. His oldest son, Robert, lives in Chicago and is an executive for Groupon, while his youngest son, Elihu, is a recent Duke University graduate who works for a New York City sustainable energy firm.
The impact the Maryland Film Festival has had on the community is something that is very important to Dietz.
“We started, hoping to bring filmmakers here so they would see the community and all of its power,” Dietz said. “How it is such a great place to make movies.”
Jessica Baroody, events manager, said she has admired Dietz’s leadership in the past 18 months she has been working with the festival.
“Jed has done an amazing job over the last 20 years creating a space for the film-making and film-loving community to come together and celebrate the art form, and I’m proud to help continue and build upon his legacy,” Baroody said.
Retirement apparently was a hard decision because Dietz said he felt he could continue to work. But he cited his desire to spend time traveling with his wife and spending more time with his family as reasons to retire. The business aspect of retirement was perfect timing, although he said he plans to remain as a board member and work as a consultant.
“It’s always hard to pick the right moment but we’ve known great friends and relatives who are not able, because of health or other reasons, to do the things they wish they could have done,” Dietz said. “The Parkway has been open for a year, it is on a really great trajectory. We have great partners like MICA and Hopkins. There is no other festival in the world that has this sort of partnership.”
Patrick Wright, chair at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), said he looks forward to the Maryland Film Festival every year.
“I love the MFF,” Wright said. “It happens the last weekend of our school’s spring semester. I like seeing three and four movies a day, that I don’t know much about. I really like being surprised by a film. I also enjoy the fact that many of the films are hosted by the filmmaker – so you get to hear directly about their process and intentions.”