Newport Beach Film Fest

Keeping in tune with what my lovely co-worker Amy blogged about on Friday, I'm here today to remind you that the Newport Beach Film Festival is continuing to show hand-selected films through this Thursday night. It's not too late to get out to Newport and take part in an excellent film series!

The NBFF staffers were kind enough to set aside some press passes for the Gazette (could it have been our article on the history of the Festival in the April issue that did the charm?), so I went out to the Edwards of Fashion Island on Sunday (one of the main theater venues for the Festival) and attended the Fairy Tale/Fantasy Shorts. In about an hour and a half, I saw six short films (between 15-20 minutes each) that fit under the Fairy Tale/Fantasy genre. Without giving away too much- no spoiler alert here- I'll say that I was enchanted as Snow White went on trial, a ghost appeared to a WWI soldier, a 10 year-old boy escaped into adventures of "Adam Avenger," a goofy Glenn Owen Dodds showed that he was G.O.D., a young boy found out about his dad's true super-identity, and Patrick Warburton kicked some serious fanny in a spoof of action movies.

This is all just to tickle your taste buds and entice you to get out there yourself. You can see some great films and support a whole slew of sponsors (from the city of Newport Beach to the Daily Pilot to the Chamber of Commerce to Absolut Vodka) in the process! The Festival is populated by sponsors, filmmakers, actors, and film aficionados alike, so you'll be rubbing elbows with all kinds! At the screening I attended on Sunday, there was a 30 minute Q&A time with directors/producers from four out of the five shorts. This helped shed a lot of light on the film making process, the challenges of making a film, insight into artistic decisions made, and an idea of the finances required to make a film.

Film screenings are typically $15/person, and there are also a few after-parties you can buy food/drink-inclusive tickets to.

Click here for the schedule grid (once there, scroll to the top of the page to pick a day)
Click here for the Festival program- a list of the 300+ films and their synopses.

Let us know which films you're interested in seeing! We hope to see you there!

-Blythe
on my blip: Fanfarlo's "The Walls are Coming Down"