PROVINCETOWN — After a national search, Rachael Brister has been hired as the new CEO of the Provincetown Film Society (PFS), the umbrella organization for the Provincetown International Film Festival, the Waters Edge Cinema, and the Gabrielle A. Hanna Provincetown Film Institute, PFS announced on Tuesday. Brister will also serve as the film festival’s executive director. She will begin her new position on Feb. 1, 2020.

Brister will succeed the current CEO, Christine Walker, who announced her intention to step down in August. Walker will remain involved with the organization with a focus on its women’s initiatives, including the annual Women’s Media Summit.

Brister brings over 20 years of film festival, nonprofit leadership, marketing, and fundraising experience to PFS. She was executive director of ImageOut: The Rochester LGBT Film Festival, and of Three Dollar Bill Cinema in Seattle, Wash., which produced the Seattle Queer Film Festival and the Seattle Transgender Film Festival. While living in Rochester, N.Y., she managed the Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman House Museum as well as the Little Theatre, Rochester’s five-screen nonprofit independent movie house.

“I am thrilled to be joining such a highly respected film organization that continually supports and lifts up the voices of minority communities and creates a space for emerging and established producers, directors, and actors to tell their stories,” Brister said in the press announcement.

Anthony Lawson, the PFS board president, said, “We are so pleased to have Rachael join the PFS team — her vision and experience made her an ideal candidate to help us champion diverse voices in film and continue to expand our mission locally and globally.”