Sunscreen aims to educate and captivate
Here in the shadow of Hollywood, it is a daunting task to carve out a niche in the bustling film festival scene. The Sunscreen Film Festival, happening in Hermosa Beach on Oct. 10-12, looks up to the challenge. Sprouting off from the very successful nine-year-old festival of the same name based in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Sunscreen Film Festival offers a wide variety of feature films, documentaries and shorts, as well as panels and workshops with industry members.
The festival has a strong focus on education, setting itself up as an alternative for aspiring filmmakers that lack the opportunity to attend a film school like the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Tony Armer, the co-founder and exective director of the original festival, sees it as one of the main distinguishing features of the festival.
“One of the unique things that we’ve become known for over the years are the educational workshops and stuff that we do,” Armer said. “Not everybody has the opportunity to go to film school or to have access to people who can really teach them something about film. So we have [had] great workshops over the years. You know, Oscar-nominated screenwriters, or producers and directors that are actively working in Hollywood.”
The Hermosa Beach festival is determined to tap into this central idea of education. Robert Enriquez, the co-founder of the West Coast iteration of the festival, has expanded this portion in the festival’s second year.
“The type of people who come to our film festivals are extremely eager and interested in learning about the industry as well, so we offer panels,” Enriquez said.
Notable professionals coming to the festival include Mitchell Bell, the head of physical production at Marvel Studios and Christi Sopher from casting at Dreamworks Animation. The panels they will be leading and the associated workshops are a strong point of emphasis for the organizers.
Sunscreen also focuses on involvement with in the community. Enriquez lives in Hermosa Beach and is passionate about using the festival to invigorate the local community. The main goal is to partner with local companies for the festival. Sharkey’s, a local restaurant, has emerged as a very important sponsor. On top of this, the overflow of festival goers invigorates the local community. Enriquez sees the location as an important factor in this.
“You want to have a reason to come,” Enriquez said. “It’s fun when you get to go to a destination-type spot and there’s things to do there if you’re going to spend the money, which a lot of these guys they don’t have a lot of money so its like we get to see our film, mingle with other filmmakers, and we’re also out on the beach and hang out on pier avenue and I think a lot of these guys are thrilled by that.”
The festival organizers are also trying to commission the trophies for the festival from a local glassmaker. In addition to these these indirect benefits to the South Bay community, the festival will donate one fourth of all VIP pass sales to the Hermosa Valley Parent Teachers Organization and the Hermosa Beach Educational Foundation. On top of this, Sunscreen is giving proceeds to the Hermosa Museum and the Hermosa Arts Foundation.
This passion about giving back to the community goes back to the original Floridian festival as well. Armer describes with pride the impact the festival has had on the St. Petersburg area.
“We had an economic impact study done that showed that, just over a couple of days, [there was] over a 400,000 dollar economic impact in the area,” Armer said. “[This came from] people coming and spending money on hotel rooms and flying in and going out to eat and spending money at local businesses.”
The ties to the original festival are strong, and with good reason. The festival has been named on a number of best-of festival lists and is one of only 23 film festivals sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Last year, the inaugural year for the Hermosa festival, the founders of the St. Peterson festival were very hands-on in helping to set up the festival. This year, the Hermosa festival has had its training wheels removed and has been allowed to ride very much on its own.
“It’s almost like having year one all over again.” Enriquez said, “We had a little more time to get sponsors, we had a little more time to reach out to peers in the industry throughout the year. I’ve actually switched venues.”
The ambition to grow the Hermosa iteration into a leading festival that matches the heights of the original St. Petersburg version or to even surpass them is unabashedly shared by Enriquez. “three years, five years down the line [we aim to] grow in to Manhattan Beach, Redondo beach, El Segundo and Torrance. And let [the festival] grow and become something like a Sundance, or Newport, or Telluride or any of these other festivals.” Enriquez said, “Cause I feel like we have a lot to offer down here.”
The quality of the individual films is almost an afterthought at this festival’s fledgling stage. The sheer variance in the selections, however, is another point of emphasis for the festival as the creators strive for a varied demographic of different festivalgoers. Beyond the targeted slice of young filmmakers, the festival also hopes to attract families with kid-friendly entertainment. The opening night movie, for example, is Hoovey, a family film. That film also continues the trend of embracing the community as its director and producer both live in the South Bay. There will also be a youth trailer competition for children under 18 with a screening on Sunday of the ten best trailers judged by representatives from Lionsgate and Dreamworks.
The festival is still in its early days but shows the potential for great growth through its optimal location, dedication to education, community involvement and, perhaps most importantly, vision from the creators. It might be quite the anecdote many years on to be able to say you went to the first real Sunscreen Film Festival.