Film fest’s local ties
“You oughta be in pictures. You’re wonderful to see. You oughta be in pictures. Oh, what a hit you would be!”
— Nadine Dana Suesse and Eddie Heyman, “You Oughta Be in Pictures”
There’s something so kicky about watching a film with ties to your own hometown. Many Cambrians discovered that pleasure when the sci-fi thriller “Arachnophobia,” featuring Cambria locations and extras, was released in 1990 — although some of us with fear of spiders are ashamed to admit we’ve never yet been able to watch it.
So, it’s no surprise that, among the documentaries, features and shorts to be shown at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival through Sunday, March 10, are seven productions with ties to this area.
Among the festival’s North Coast-related selections are some by student producer-directors who live in Cambria or attend schools in Coast Unified School District. Another was produced by someone who used to represent the North Coast on the county Board of Supervisors. A third international-level documentary profiles William Randolph Hearst. Another film profiles director-actor Jim Buckley.
“Citizen Hearst” also brings down the curtain on the 2013 festival at 6:30 p.m. March 10 at the Fremont Theatre in San Luis Obispo. There, tickets are $10 for general admission and $8 for students and SLOIFF Film Society members.
Three local films are part of the festival “Filmmakers of Tomorrow Showcase.” Admission to the showcase at 10 a.m. March 10 at Downtown Cinemas, 888 Marsh Street, is $5 for adults and free for students. A portion of monies raised are to be donated to a worthwhile youth organization; the remainder will be used to fund the festival’s summer youth filmmaking programs.
The latter won the “Best Local Film” prize in SLOIFF’s 2010 showcase for young filmmakers, and the Children’s Jury Award first prize at the 2010 Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. Cast members from Cambria included Daniel and Eddie Dominguez, Jackson Willhite, Callie Cashdan and Cesar Viveros.
A Plummer video about California’s 2010 summer-reading programs was selected as the official statewide public service announcement on www.youtube.com. And this year, the brothers entered another video, “We ‘Dig’ Reading,” in the California Summer Reading Program Teen Video Challenge. Voting ended Feb. 28. See the video at http://tinyurl.com/bz5k3x2.
Young participants in the 2012 YMCA Summer Institute, a program run in partnership with the Coast school district, created two other short films showing at the festival. The students voluntarily, enthusiastically, spent many summer hours in nearly two months of free youth-institute classes.
• “The Do-It-All Remote,” was the work of Santa Lucia Middle School students Leo Martinez, Daniel Pena, Edwardo Hernandez, Maria Ramirez, Sheridyn Murray and Dante Garcia of Cambria and Logan Kepins of Shandon. At last year’s YMCA Long Beach Youth Institute Film Festival, “Remote” won the first-place award for middle-school productions.
Other local-oriented films to be screened at Downtown Cinemas March 10, both at 4 p.m., are:
And the final film with North Coast ties?
“Between The Tides” profiles pioneering marine ecologist Ed Ricketts, famed friend of the legendary author John Steinbeck. Much of the footage was shot at Central Coast locations, including the Abalone Farm in Cayucos and Avila Beach.
Laurent’s 70-minute film screens at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 10, at Perla del Mar, 205 Windward Avenue in Shell Beach.
For details about these and other showings at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, go to www.slofilmfest.org.
This story was originally published March 7, 2013 at 12:54 PM with the headline "Film fest’s local ties."