This Charlotte film festival was borne out of a mother’s promise to her son

Who: Diane Restaino made a promise to her son, Joe, that she would work to raise money and awareness in Charlotte about rare pediatric cancer. After Joe was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer and died in 2010 at the age of 20, Diane made good on that promise by creating the Joedance Film Festival.

#RealCharlotte: Diane Restaino. President of the Joedance Film Festival. Loyal. Passionate. Keeps her promise. Diane on what she admired most about her son, Joe Restaino. “Oh wow. So many things. You know, this is what I admired most about him. His grace…all the way to the end of his life. He just had a whole grace about it. And how thoughtful he was about everybody that was going to be left behind. He planned his own funeral. He picked the music…For the last few months, if he had wronged anybody, he called them and said he was sorry. I didn’t even know he was doing it. He was a typical teenage boy but he had some really deep morals. He was just a really amazing kid.”

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Diane joined us on this week’s CharlotteFive Podcast to talk the festival, which returns to Fourth Ward Aug. 4-5.

What: For the first Joedance Film Festival in 2010, Diane and her family showed Sundance Film Festival movies on the wall of a Fourth Ward townhouse with a DVD player strapped to a patio. That first event raised $950 for the Levine Children’s Hospital. This year, for the eight-annual festival, Diane expects to write a check to the hospital for $25,000.

Though the scope of the festival has grown, the venue hasn’t. Diane and her team set up tents in the 10th Street Townhomes Courtyard, serve hot dogs instead of popcorn and have a cash bar available.

This year’s festival will feature 15 short films and two feature films selected by a panel of judges.

Learn more about the festival and buy tickets at Joedance.org.

Anything else?

– Sallie and I discuss Katie Toussaint’s article about why she doesn’t like networking events. (We feel you, Katie.)

– Is there a monster in Lake Norman?

– And we tell you what you should be doing this weekend.

The CharlotteFive Podcast — presented by The Charlotte Observer and powered by OrthoCarolina — is a weekly podcast that aims to get you Charlotte Smart, Fast with fun, interesting and useful news about the city. It’s hosted by Corey Inscoe and Sallie Funderburk, and produced by Richard Brooke and 2Waves Media.

You can find The CharlotteFive Podcast on Soundcloud, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and TuneIn. You can follow us on Twitter @Charlotte_Five, on Instagram @cltfive, and on Facebook, and you can shoot us an email to charlottefive@charlottefive.com.

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This story was originally published July 18, 2017 at 11:01 PM with the headline "This Charlotte film festival was borne out of a mother’s promise to her son."