The Provincetown Film Festival (PIFF) PFS first started out as the Provincetown Film Festival (PIFF) in 1999 as a means to attract economic development to the town during the shoulder month of June. Since then, the festival has attracted millions of dollars to the town and has become one of the country's preeminent film festivals. It presents a diverse array of American and international narrative features, documentaries and short films, while highlighting the unique attributes of Provincetown's rich and diverse history as an arts colony, Portuguese fishing village, gay and lesbian mecca, and a town first inhabited by Native Americans.