It is with heavy hearts we announce the passing of our board member Drew Burbridge.  As members of the KCFFI Board, words can not fully describe how much Drew meant to us, both on personal and professional levels. 

 Drew first joined the festival as a volunteer 2014. His welcoming smile, enthusiasm and willingness to help wherever he could, quickly made him a standout. Through his work volunteering with the festival, many of our Board Members came to know him and invited him to be a Board Member.  Drew accepted, and with Jennifer, they quickly worked together to find more ways to use their talents to help the festival. Whenever we think of Drew, we want to include Jennifer because Drew and “Jenni” were a team, both donating their time and energy, with great love to the festival and our community of filmmakers

Drew was multi-talented, but the characteristic that stood out the most was his capacity to care; everything Drew did to help the festival and our Kansas City community was done with a desire to help and lift others up.  Drew and Jennifer helped with graphic design, the children’s film festival, sponsor development and most importantly filmmaker outreach.  As a filmmaker himself, Drew had a great appreciation for the talents and work of fellow filmmakers, he helped the festival learn about new talent, invited amazing movies to the festival, mentored filmmakers and was the best ever KC FilmFest International tour guide for our visiting filmmakers. Every year he conducted the tour, filmmakers walked away with a huge appreciation for our city, our community and newfound friends thanks to the generosity of Drew’s spirit.  

Drew touched so many lives and we will miss him.