South Bay Film and Music Fest helps to revive local arts scene
Jon Fitzgerald, executive director of the South Bay Film and Music Festival, stands with a first-run poster of the Italian version of “Citizen Kane.” The film, celebrating its 75th anniversary, will be shown at the festival. Photo In 1998, Jon Fitzgerald was organizing the film festival of the American Film Institute. To open the festival, Fitzgerald chose a then-little-known movie he had seen earlier that year at a film festival in Venice — Roberto Benigni’s “Life is Beautiful.” He made the decision against the advice of what seemed to be pretty much everyone in Hollywood. Seasoned industry personnel warned him that a subtitled movie about the Holocaust was a poor match for an evening that was supposed to be a giant party. But Fitzgerald stood by his decision. The result was a “spectacular night.” “People told me that I couldn’t do this on the opening night, that no one would want to watch a subtitled movie,” he recalled. “Well guess what, it worked. People who never watched foreign films were blown away. Guess what? People can stand to see a foreign film and actually read for a while.” Eighteen years later, Fitzgerald, a Redondo Beach-native, is serving as executive director of…
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