Cindy Pinto, Entrepreneur and Queen of the Austin Jewish Film Festival Pinto Accomplishes Goals With Energy and Grace

For some people Monday night is strictly for watching football. Others suffer through interminably long school board meetings or hum along with Larry Monroe and the Blue Monday jazz show on KUT. But nearly every Monday evening, Cindy Pinto holds a meeting at her home for the Austin Jewish Film Festival Steering Committee.

The AJFF Committee, which views about 60 films a year before settling on the 25 or so selected for the festival, is a dedicated and eclectic group. David Goldblatt, a radiologist and one of the original AJFF founders, is the visionary. Sandy Sack is the historian and process person extraordinaire. Rachel Hully is official court jester and resident expert on local happenings like SXSW. Sharon Swedlow handles the books, and Cynthia Winer does the website.

Winer’s husband Joe, Judy Casorla and Beverly Scarborough assist as well. But it is Pinto who orders the films, negotiates with a group of filmmakers, producers and actors, coordinates venues, keeps donors happy, and stays on top of all the elements that make a good film festival. She even says that she keeps the meetings in-house so her husband David Pinto will have to attend. She is, to say the least, organized. Friends still speak in awe about the time when David, also an architect, sold their home last summer and Cindy had the new house in perfect order with every picture in place right in time for the next weekly meeting. She has exceedingly high energy. She proves to be completely unflappable, handling broken projectors, misplaced reels, lost speakers and the occasional risqué film with humor and diplomacy. The Pintos are gracious hosts and are always planning dinners, luncheons, brunches or receptions for any number of friends or worthwhile causes. There is always a delicious and kosher-friendly spread, accompanied by a variety of beverages, including hot tea, which David insists on making individually for each guest.

A tiny woman who stays in shape with yoga and daily exercise, Pinto was born in Detroit, the oldest of five children. She was 16 and spending the summer on a farm in Israel when she met David, a sophisticated 18-year-old from a Sephardic Israeli family. They corresponded for four years, and when David completed his military service as a paratrooper in the Israeli army, he lost no time in making his way to Detroit. They were married in 1975, and their daughter arrived a year later.

Pinto, who holds a degree from the University of Michigan in dental hygiene, supported the family while David attended architecture school at UT Arlington. Together they established a successful business with David as an architectural designer and Cindy as office manager. Finding themselves empty nesters at a young age, they took off for a year of round-the-world travel, an adventure that was recounted in the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

But a visit to Austin sold them on the city’s wonders and they settled here nine years ago, vowing to become an active part of their new community. David opened an architectural practice focusing on home design. Cindy founded Promotions at Work, a one-woman business merchandising specialty items. Her creative flair, attention to detail and ability to charm the public have served her well, and she has grown the business into an operation with annual billings of $500,000 and an impressive roster of clients.

Seeking volunteer opportunities both to be of service and make new friends, she got involved with the Jewish Book Fair and has organized the Women’s Book Lovers Luncheon for two years in a row. This year’s event drew a record-breaking crowd of over 300 women, which prompted her co-chair Valerie Granoff to say that Pinto is “simply amazing.” But the Austin Jewish Film Festival, which is a totally volunteer project, is her first love, and she has worked on it tirelessly for the past five years.

Pinto is a devoted family member and is especially close to her mother, who still lives in Michigan but flies in for the Film Festival nearly every year, as well as her sisters and brothers. The Pintos have a tradition of spending their Thanksgiving holidays in Michigan and travel to Israel to spend Passover with David’s family each spring.

The Austin Jewish Film Festival is just weeks away, and Pinto has gone into high gear. Her dining room table overflows with plastic cartons of films, reviews, programs and advertising copy. The phone is ringing off the hook, and transatlantic emails are an hourly occurrence. All that Cindy Pinto has to say with a big smile and a twinkle in her eye is that the 2008 AJFF will certainly be the best one ever! And thanks to her, it undoubtedly will be.

MORE INFO Cindy Pinto/Austin Jewish Film Festival 2607 West Rim Austin, Texas 78731 512.502.8626 promoswork@austin.rr.com