Enthusiam High in Wake of Newport Film Festival

Turnout was low, but that didn’t curb the enthusiasm of Orange County theater managers who rented out their venues for Asian and Spanish-language movies for the recent Newport Beach International Film Festival.

Managers at Garden Grove’s Four Star Cinema, home to the fourth annual festival’s Asian Cinema Kaleidoscope and Santa Ana’s Teatro Fiesta, which sponsored the event’s Festival del Cine, said they sold an average of one-quarter of each screening’s available seats. But both said they’d probably participate in the festival again.

“We did great,” said Edgar Santos, Teatro Fiesta’s manager. “Especially because we haven’t shown Spanish or Mexican-made films for a long time.”

Jennifer Simons, Four Star’s manager, applauded the festival’s volunteer spirit. All its staffers work for free. “It’s [run by] people giving of their own time who just want to help bring independent films into movie theaters,” Simons said. “I think it turned out well.”

About 110 films--the vast majority of them U.S.-made--were screened during the 11-day festival, which ended Sunday.

Festival director Jeffrey Conner said Thursday that overall attendance, which last year totaled about 14,900, probably won’t be available until next week. But he was optimistic because, he said, more screenings than ever sold out this year. Seats for some showings, including a screening of Spain’s popular “Open Your Eyes” at Teatro Fiesta, were three-quarters full.

“That’s an unbelievable attendance for an independent or [foreign] film in a festival with one-thousandth of the marketing budget of the major studios,” he said.

This was the first year that festival films were shown in cities with large Latino and Asian populations. The idea was to better serve those communities, said Conner, who has not decided whether to do the same thing next year.

Simons, who achieved her goal of increasing Four Star’s Asian audience, said that logistical problems with the festival, which have dogged the event each year, didn’t overly bother her or theater patrons.

Three films, from Korea, India and China, never were delivered to Four Star, Simons said. Conner said he had not heard anything about the foul-ups, and that another theater manager’s complaint that a $2,000 rental check from the festival bounced was “totally incorrect.”

Meanwhile, Robert Cano, Festival del Cine’s coordinator, said one Spanish film never arrived at Teatro Fiesta because it was shipped back to Spain after a Santa Barbara screening.

But, Cano said, he received lots of good feedback.

“We got nothing but positive response from people saying how important it was to have a festival of this kind in their community,” he said.

Conner added that he hopes to increase volunteer participation next year, to ensure that “every person can have every question they have about the films answered. And I think I’d like to add films from more countries next year.”

Later this month, Teatro Fiesta will screen the festival’s grand prize winner, “Open Your Eyes,” which is being released nationally.

Other prize winners in the festival, a juried competition, were:

* “An Affair,” Korea, Asian Cinema Kaleidoscope award.

* “If I Never See You again,” Mexico, Festival del Cine award.

* “Free Enterprise,” U.S., audience award.

* “Going to the Chapel, Chapel,” U.S., marketing award.

* “Kate’s Addiction,” U.S., Maverick award.

* “Script Doctor,” U.S., short-film award.

* “Castelli in Aria,” U.S.-Italy, Executive Director’s Choice.

* “Lithium,” Sweden, Director’s Award.

* “My Lazy White Friends,” U.S., Documentary Award.