Bel Destefani stands in front of the historic Carolina Theatre in 2019. In her current role with Full Frame, Destefani works closely with the theater, which serves as a primary venue for festival film screenings. (Photo courtesy of Bel Destefani)
From Trinity to Full Frame by Means of Curiosity
During Full Frame week in downtown Durham, Belem Destefani moves with quiet purpose. A volunteer has a question about their shift. A filmmaker needs to do a tech check for their film. A screening is about to let out, and the lobby is filling fast. Destefani takes it all in, then pivots to the next task.
“I like to think of my role as putting everything together,” she says. “Giving people the tools they need, then trusting them to do what they do best.”
Since 2024, Destefani (T’09) has served as Operations Director for the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, overseeing the behind-the-scenes logistics that allow one of the country’s most respected documentary festivals to run smoothly. Operations, she explains, is everything audiences don’t see, but would immediately notice if it went wrong.
Her responsibilities range widely: managing the festival’s box office and pass pickup strategy in partnership with Duke University Box Office, coordinating hotels and theater venues, liaising with the Durham Convention Center and the Carolina Theater, and working closely with an independent projection company to ensure films meet Full Frame’s technical standards.
Destefani also oversees seasonal staff, about 30 people who join the festival team from January through April, as well as managing Full Frame’s volunteer program.
With more than 200 volunteers supporting a six-person full-time staff, volunteers are essential. “I don’t think we could do the same festival without them,” she says. “It’s been great to be more directly involved, to really get to know people and understand what motivates them.”
That ability to balance people, systems and creativity has roots in Destefani’s Trinity education. When she arrived at Duke, she initially planned to pursue premed, which her parents encouraged as a “practical path”. But Trinity’s liberal arts education invited her to explore.
“I realized pretty quickly that I wanted to take the classes that actually interested me,” she says. She gravitated toward the Arts & Humanities, eventually completing an English major, and Political Science and Psychology minors. “That freedom to try things, that’s very Trinity.”
She also studied abroad twice, spending time in London and Florence, experiences she credits with broadening her worldview. “It wasn’t just academic,” she says. “It filled my soul. It helped me understand what I enjoyed and how I wanted to move through the world.”
Documentary film entered the picture late in her undergraduate career. During her final semester, Destefani took Introduction to Film Studies with Negar Mottahedeh, professor of Literature.
“That course changed everything for me,” she says. Around the same time, a friend was attending Full Frame as a fellow. “That’s how I first heard about the festival,” she says. “After graduation, I wasn’t ready for grad school yet, but I knew I wanted to work in film somehow.”
She applied for a Full Frame internship and also wrote for Indy Week, gaining early experience in arts journalism. Soon after, she headed to New York to earn a master’s degree in cinema studies at New York University (NYU)’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Destefani spent the next 12 years in New York working across nonprofit arts organizations, film festivals and higher education, including roles at the Museum of the Moving Image, Film Society at Lincoln Center, Creative Capital and NYU. Her career path eventually led her into financial analysis for NYU’s School of Arts and Sciences, an unexpected but fitting turn.
“I’m very arts minded, but I’m also very data driven,” she says. “That analytical side ended up being incredibly useful.”
Throughout it all, Destefani maintained ties to Full Frame through Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, volunteering and serving on screening and programming committees. When she and her partner decided to return to North Carolina, closer to family and drawn by the Triangle’s creative energy, the timing was perfect.
“When a position opened up, it felt like a full circle moment,” she says. “This was the job I dreamed about back when I was an intern.”
Today, Destefani’s work helps bring roughly 10,000 attendees to downtown Durham over four spring days, generating cultural and economic energy across the city. Yet Full Frame remains intentionally accessible: Discussion panels are free and open to the public, some film screenings are free, and the awards ceremony is a downhome barbecue.
“We’re not trying to be flashy,” she says. “We want people to feel welcome, to be part of the conversation.”
That community focus, Destefani believes, is what makes Full Frame special, and what keeps her rooted in Durham. “It’s global storytelling with local impact,” she says. “That’s what makes the work meaningful.”
As Trinity alumni return to campus and Full Frame approaches, Destefani hopes first-time attendees are surprised, not just by the scale of the festival, but by its warmth, and by the way stories unfold both on and off screen.
“If people leave feeling more curious about the world,” she says, “then we’ve done our job.”
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The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival will take place in Durham, April 16–19, 2026. Visit fullframefest.org for more information