Other Venice Film Festival

The Southland’s BEST Film Festivals

By David Geffner

Visit www.aaa-calif.com/westways

Southern California may be the center of the movie industry, but it wasn’t until roughly a decade ago, right after Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival began attracting cinema buffs in the tens of thousands, that local film festivals really began to take off. Hey, if screening a few hundred independent and foreign movies could bring people to Utah in January, who wouldn’t want to visit Newport Beach in April?

Nowadays, the Southland has a film festival for every demographic and taste. Movie lovers can ring in the New Year with Brad Pitt under Coachella Valley date palms or sip pinot noir at a party for a nature documentary in Santa Barbara. Sponsored by corporate donors and produced by local nonprofit film societies and volunteers, Southern California’s film festivals

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are truly grassroots events where even press-shy movie stars let down their guard to celebrate cinematic art. Sold-out screenings don’t just support local businesses. They also warm the hearts of all those independent direcvtors whose films (given the skyrocketing costs of distribution) may never get beyond a festival premiere. Here are our favorite local festivals, broken down in “reel” detail, and 10 others that will satisfy every niche and interest.

The Other Venice Film Festival
This festival, which showcases local work from a vibrant Venice Beach arts and music scene, is casual and friendly–its name is meant as an antidote to that “other” film festival in Italy, known for its celebrities and dealmaking.