PHILADELPHIA - Carol Coombs has accepted a managing editor position with TLAvideo. Chief among her duties beginning in early October will be to develop and nurture TLAvideo's growing lesbian catalog, the company said.
In addition, effective immediately, Coombes will serve as the associate artistic director of the Philadelphia Film Festival, presented by the Philadelphia Film Society. Her duties will include programming and curating special events for the festival, the next incarnation of which will run March 26 through April 7, 2009.
Coombes takes to Philadelphia nearly a decade of solid festival work as well as a lifetime love-affair with cinema. Prior to accepting the positions at TLA and Philly Fest, Coombes served as the award-winning creative force behind the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. A native of Manchester, England, Coombes previously worked with the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival before moving to the United States in 2001. When she left the London festival, she was serving as a board member for the organization and its program director.
"I am delighted to be joining TLAvideo as manager editor of lesbian content," she said. "I am looking forward to working with the terrifically dedicated team at TLAvideo."
Raymond Murray, president of TLAvideo parent company TLA Entertainment Group and artistic director of the Philadelphia Film Society, said he is equally thrilled to have Coombes on his teams.
"I am very excited to have Carol join the TLAvideo and Philadelphia Film Festival teams," he said. "Her film experience working in London with the British Film Institute and in Miami with the MGLFF is unparalleled. Her success in Miami - in taking a small, regional gay-and-lesbian film festival and in a few short years, making it one of the most important film festivals in the United States - is a testament to her organizational abilities, her vast programming knowledge and overall vision of creating a world-class film festival."
