Newport Beach Film Fest 411

How it began. What to expect. And what to look out for. The ninth-annual festival runs April 24-May 1.

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ack in 1999, when Todd Quartararo and Gregg Schwenk, two ambitious, movie-loving, self-admitted naivetés, founded the Newport Beach Film Festival, they could barely get a phone call returned and felt lucky to fill a small banquet room for the opening night gala. Now, nine years and a few U.S. premiers later – one of them being the 2005 Oscar-winning Crash – the phone won’t stop ringing and they’ve outgrown every ballroom in the city thanks to opening night attendance topping 1,500. In short, the Newport Beach Film Festival is now a celebrity.

But the thing about celebrities is: they’re high-maintenance, and the NBFF rivals Norma Desmond in that category. Each year, hundreds of volunteers dedicate thousands of hours to help the NBFF shine brighter than any Hollywood marquee. It’s a mostly thankless job only true cinephiles could pull off. Here’s how they do it and why you don’t want to miss it.

When did the Newport Beach Film Festival start? During the late 1990s, there was a film festival called the Newport Beach International Film Festival, which declared bankruptcy in 1999. But two men, Todd Quartararo, owner of Q&A Marketing, and Gregg Schwenk, a successful investment banker, who had done volunteer work for that festival, believed in the concept too much to call cut. “We both decided that the festival might be bankrupt but the idea wasn’t, so we set out to pull it back together. It was important to us not to miss a year,” says Quartararo. And they didn’t, despite the fact that the new festival was just that: a non-profit event with no ties to the previous festival.

How hard was that first year? Hard. Make that really hard. “We thought, ‘All we

The Tracey Fragments

need to do is get great films and let the public know about it.’ It was a simple idea,” says Quartararo. The pair got a modest office and bought two simple computers and declared a festival. “Then reality hit and the submissions came rolling in,” says Quartararo. Suddenly, the pair had hundreds of movies to screen and pass judgment on, all while wooing sponsors, planning gala events, securing screens. All with only six months till the red carpet rolled. “My background is in investment banking,” says Schwenk, “and this was the hardest thing I’d ever done.”

How much has the festival grown? While they’re still in that original office, they’re now bursting at the seams with a dozen work stations and more than 250 volunteers (and hundreds more on a waiting list). Attendance wise, every year has been an increase over the previous: the first year 12,000 people showed; 2008 will attract 45,000. “We’re shocked by the amount of people who are driving from San Diego, Los Angeles or Palm Springs to go to the festival. Many people even take their vacation here because the festival is in town,” says Schwenk.

How many films are selected? There is no specific amount since the decision is made based on quality not quantity. So one year, there may be 350 films, another year, there might be 275. This year, there will be more than 350 films from 36 countries.

How many films are submitted? Try 1,800 films this year, which is three times more than during the first year.

Captain Abu Raed

How are films selected? Every film gets screened, in its entirety, by five people: three screeners and two programmers. There are 50 screeners and 25 programmers, made up of a cross section of our community and “industry” people. Each film gets scored on a scale from one to 10 and the top tier makes it to a big screen near you.

How bad are some of the films? Every year, there are films in which actors are obviously reading cue cards, booms drop into frame or music isn’t cleared. One amateur two-minute film had U2 as its score. “I called to tell the filmmaker we needed to see the paperwork on that,” says Quartararo. The filmmaker never got back to him. But rest assured, examples like that are automatic declines.

Ever get angry calls from rejected filmmakers? Oh yeah… but because they have such respect for the time that goes into even a cinematic 10-car pile-up, Quartararo and Schwenk offer to let them speak to a programmer who actually watched their film. “We take our obligation seriously,” says Quartararo. “Some filmmakers think we didn’t even watch it, then someone gets on the line and proves we did.”

How do the awards work? There is a jury of industry professionals that screens the films. At the end of the festival there is an awards night to give out awards for Best Director, Best Film, etc. – similar awards to the Oscars. There are also audience awards. At every screening, ballots for that film are handed out, resulting in Audience Award for best short, feature and documentary.

Did hosting the world premier of Crash in 2005, which went on to grab the Oscar for Best Picture, help your status? In a big

Fix

way. Hosting the U.S. premier of Crash, and thus beating everyone to discovering the film, has become a NBFF hallmark. “We just really believed in that film,” says Schwenk. “And obviously our intuition was right.” As Quartararo says, “Crash made the phone calls really easy.” Which is probably why they were able to follow that up with the West Coast premier of The Illusionist and last year corralled indie favorite Waitress. But what has also helped is the proliferation of shows displaying the OC to the world. Shows like “The OC,” “Arrested Development,” “Laguna Beach,” and the film Orange County have put Orange County on the map. “We don’t get ‘Where’s that?’ any more,” says Quartararo.

Are the filmmakers on hand? Yes, most films feature Q-and-A periods with the filmmakers after the film.

Besides the U.S., what countries are represented? Thirty-six in all. The festival has a strong lineup of Australian, Asian, African, and European fare. There are also some very unique films, such as Slingshot Hip-Hop, which chronicles hip-hop in Palestine. And closing night will feature the first Jordanian feature film made in over 50 years. Captain Abu Raed is about an airport janitor who is mistaken for a pilot by a group of kids and spins tales of what life is like outside the Middle East. It won the 2008 Audience Award for Dramatic World Cinema at Sundance.

Do you run family films? Many, and they will be shown during the day. Some to look for are: The Indian, which stars Matt Dallas, the heartthrob from the hit show “Kyle XY.” (Don’t worry, your kids will know who he is.) “This is his transition to the big screen, so he’s excited about the film and will be at the festival,” says Schwenk. And no kid will want to miss Alice Upside Down, which stars Lucas Grabeel, from “High School Musical” fame. Also of note is the encore screening of Son of Rambow, a heartwarming family comedy that garnered an Audience Award last year.

How many parties and gala events are there? There are between one and three major event screenings per night, which means

Check out our select preview of festival special events and screenings.

an after-party and the filmmakers on hand. There are also many studio and producer parties each night, so on any given night there can be upwards of five different parties going on for the festival.

What other special nights are planned? Two not to miss are: A special evening with Roy Disney who’s taken things out of the Disney vault to show and talk about. “That will be a great family night,” says Quartararo. Also, the screening of Trying to Get Good: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon. “Jack Sheldon, one of the legends of jazz trumpet, who played on ‘The Merv Griffin Show,’ and with Benny Goodman for years, is coming out,” says Schwenk. For those who aren’t jazz aficionados, Sheldon is also the voice behind the legendary “Schoolhouse Rock!” tune “I’m Just A Bill.”

I heard there are seminars on the various crafts of filmmaking. Yes, and they are free, as opposed to other major festivals, where they charge upwards of $25 for each seminar. “We’ll bring in some of the top talent in Hollywood to speak about screenwriting, directing and music composition,” says Schwenk.

Do you accept films from college students? Yes. There are showcases from UCLA, USC, Chapman, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Fullerton, Loyola Marymount, OCC, and Saddleback. The audience will see a lineup of the best of the best from these schools.

How about even younger filmmakers? You bet; it’s the Youth Series presented by Volcom, for filmmakers under age 18. And you are guaranteed to be amazed at the quality. “What’s great about them is that when you’re looking at films produced by grads of film school, they’re at times confined by what they’ve been told you’re supposed to do. But these younger filmmakers aren’t so confined by that experience, so some of the stuff they do is really out there, but it’s also fresh and very well made,” says Schwenk.

How has technology changed the festival in the last nine years? There has been an exponential growth of the quality of filmmaking from the festival’s inception to today, primarily due to the proliferation of technology. “Nine years ago we had 98% VHS submissions. Every so often you had a DVD from the guys who are really pushing the envelope,” says Quartararo. “Now it’s been at least two years since we got a VHS tape.” Another telling sign is the festival’s own commercial, which runs before movies in theaters. “I used to drive from theater to theater to physically clip it on to the films with the projectionist,” says Quartararo. “Now, we just send it to Denver and it gets beamed out [digitally distributed] to all the theaters and never has to be tacked onto the reel.”

Any action sports films? With Orange County being the hub of the surf and action sports world, there is a strong industry presence each year at the festival. This year there are seven action sports films.

Why is a local film festival important? While Orange County is a great place to live, let’s face it, it doesn’t get many films that don’t come with a $50 million marketing push. So it takes a film festival to get screens for movies that residents would otherwise either never see, or have to drive to L.A. to check out.

Is it difficult to get celebrities to attend? Not as difficult as it was in the first years, but it’s always a challenge. “But it is getting easier,” says Quartararo, “because the festival is getting bigger, and also because our area is so desirable. It’s not too hard to get them to drive an hour south to stay in a beautiful resort right near the beach.”

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