Organizer Hopes New Festival Will Galvanize Area Filmmakers

“Perishables in Love” probably won’t ever land at the local multiplex. It has no explosive car chase, no big-name star and, at 16 minutes, the movie would be over before most people had settled in with their popcorn.

But when it gets screened, along with almost 20 other independent films, at this weekend’s Channel Islands Indie Film and Video Festival, “Perishables” will give writer-director Kathy Schultz some much-needed exposure. Shultz spent four years making her film about the evolution of a man and woman’s relationship.

“You get to have your work screened with the possibility of people who could further your career seeing it,” Schultz said. “It’s very convenient for those of us who live in Ventura County.”

Organizer Luis Guereca, a film student at Cal State Northridge, said area filmmakers had been wanting to start a festival here but couldn’t get organized.

Guereca would like to see the inaugural festival stimulate local filmmakers to form stronger ties with one another.

“There’s a real lack of communication within a lot of the groups,” he said, with many filmmakers in the dark about what their colleagues are up to.

Scott Mortensen of Thousand Oaks, whose 14-minute short on a guy, his bike and his girl will be shown Saturday at the festival at Oxnard College, was surprised at the number of people around the county doing what he does.

“Just based on the number of shorts that are showing in this thing, I couldn’t believe it,” Thousand Oaks filmmaker Scott Mortensen said. “So often, I feel like I’m alone being a filmmaker in Ventura County, but that’s not the case.” Guereca would like to see the Channel Islands festival become an annual event, expanding next year from three days to five, and then to a weeklong event. Eventually, he hopes to see it evolve into a general arts festival.

But, he said, “It’s always going to have a focus on film and video.”

This weekend features 18 films and videos, ranging in length from four minutes to 90, at three venues in Oxnard and Camarillo and possibly Ventura. Some of the films have never been shown; others have made the independent rounds. Most of the film and video makers--the amateurs and professionals--will be on hand to answer questions about their works.

One of the festival’s centerpieces, “Salt of the Earth,” made in 1954, is “considered the mother of independent films,” Guereca said. The film, which will be shown Saturday at Paseo Camarillo Cinemas, documents the plight of Mexican American workers in a small mining town in New Mexico. The film’s makers were blacklisted in the 1950s by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Also featured is the recently released independent feature “Touch Me,” a ‘90s love story about a young woman who finds out that a past lover is dying of AIDS just as she is embarking on a new relationship. Having earned critical acclaim at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, the work by H. Gordon Boos will be shown Sunday, also at Paseo Camarillo Cinemas. Ticket proceeds from “Touch Me” will be donated to a local AIDS organization, Guereca said.

About a dozen short movies, most by film students, will debut on Saturday and Sunday nights. Guereca, who runs a video production program for youth through the Oxnard Housing Authority, said some of the films are the works of area high school students.

Like the professional documentaries “Salt of the Earth” and “Atomic Blue,” a film about Mexican wrestling that will be shown today, many of the films deal with Latino subjects, and many of their makers are Latino. But Guereca said the festival is for all independent films and their creators.

“We wanted to make this a regular film festival, but there will be an emphasis on minority filmmakers, without a doubt,” he said.

The Channel Islands festival’s sponsors include the Independent Film Channel and Bravo-The Film and Arts Network. Tickets will be from $2 to $5, and can be purchased at the door or reserved by calling 385-7844.

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FYI

“Atomic Blue: Mexican Wrestler” opens the Channel Islands Indie Film and Video Festival at 7 p.m. today at the Inlakech Cultural Arts Center in Oxnard. There will be a reception at 6:30 p.m.

Seven short videos will be shown Saturday at Oxnard College, Room LA-6, beginning at 11:30 a.m. “East of Hope Street” shows at noon in Room LF-8. “Salt of the Earth” begins at 5 p.m. Saturday at Paseo Camarillo Cinemas.

More shorts will be shown at noon Sunday at the Inlakech center. “Touch Me” begins at 5 p.m. Sunday at Paseo Camarillo Cinemas.

Tickets for the full-length films are available at the door for $5 each. Admission to each series of shorts is $2. Tickets can also be reserved by calling 385-7844.

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