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 the upcoming South Bay Film and Music Festival. Running June 1-5, scheduled films range from a documentary on the Kalahari Bushmen to a 50th anniversary screening of “The Endless Summer,” with a live appearance from director Bruce Brown. It is an ambitious undertaking that will both feed and test the area’s cultural appetite.
And while staging a festival in Hermosa is a lot different than doing so in Hollywood, the more profound difference may be the one between 1998 and 2016. Fitzgerald, who has organized dozens of festivals and serves as a consultant to those wishing to start new ones, said that technological change has made it easier for people to watch movies alone on a variety of screens. None of these, Fitzgerald believes, can compare to the experience of collectively watching a movie in a theater.
To bring people into the theater, the South Bay Fest is doing everything it can to expand the definition of what a film festival can be. There will be premiers and restorations, but also galas, tastings, concerts and salons. The true aim of the festival, Fitzgerald said, is to get audiences to connect.
“What I want to do with this is create experiences for the audiences. That’s the most important thing for me,” Fitzgerald said. “Yes it’s important to hear a Q&A. But if you can see all of this cool art, and have some cool music, and you have these parties… it has to be something special to get people off their couch.”
It’s who you know
Like most Hollywood deals, the South Bay Fest began with a personal connection.
Robert Rosenfeld, a member of Hermosa Beach’s Parks, Recreation and Community Resources Advisory Commission, wanted to start a film program in the city. Rosenfeld reached out to former Hermosa Beach mayor Art Yoon, who serves as an executive vice president of FilmLA, a nonprofit that coordinates and processes film permits in the Los Angeles Region. Yoon suggested Fitzgerald, having previously worked with him on other festivals.
Yoon said that despite the area’s reputation as home to beach bums — “If you want to kill a Hermosan, approach from the East because they are likely staring out at the ocean,” he mused — the town is a fine home for a film festival. Landmarks like the “90210” house on the Strand are reminders of the area’s close connection to the industry. And the natural beauty of the place makes it an ideal location for filmmakers wanting to capture iconic images of Southern California.
“You think of the postcard image of Southern California, and you are thinking of Hermosa,” Yoon said. “Beautiful people doing beautiful things. It’s the chamber of commerce photo for Southern California.”
In fall 2015, Fitzgerald began organizing programming for the Hermosa Cinema Society. The first movie the society showed was, “Landfill Harmonic,” a documentary about an orchestra composed of poor Paraguayan school children who play instruments made of trash; in addition to showing the award-winning film, audience members were treated to a live performance from the Recycled Orchestra.
After getting the monthly screening program established, Fitzgerald set his sights on a festival to kick off the summer. He found a receptive audience in Hermosa’s city government, and said that working with city-owned facilities has given him a freedom that eluded him in past festivals held in corporate theaters.
Fitzgerald got to work on curating. A bit of research led him to the fact that it the festival coincided with the 50th anniversary of “The Endless Summer.” With this as a landmark, he built programming around it. He considered including other sports movies, but had too much surfing material. Skateboarding and other extremes, he said, will come next year.
“Originally we intended to do an action-sports showcase,” Fitzgerald said. “But the fact of the matter is surf just kind of consumed it.”
As with the appearance of the orchestra for the fall showing of “Landfill Harmonic,” the “Endless Summer” screening on June 4 will feature far more than just the film. Surf art and iconography will grace the lobby of the Hermosa Community Theater, as well as the Hermosa Museum and the Clark Building. And in addition to appearing for a Q&A, Brown will be receiving the Action Sports Pioneer Award, which will subsequently be known as the “Bruce Brown Award” and will be given to action-sports filmmakers at future iterations of the festival.
These add-on experiences, Fitzgerald said, are essential to promoting film.
“Look, how many times have you seen ‘Endless Summer?’” Fitzgerald said. “But how many times have you seen it on the big screen? And how many times have you seen it with Bruce Brown?”
Made for this place
But it’s not all popcorn fare and perfect waves. In addition to “Endless Summer” and a slate of surf offerings, the South Bay Fest features a slate of cause-based documentaries and independent feature films. Fitzgerald said some of the films will be a “challenge” for audiences, but hopes that festival amenities like local food and drink can draw people in.
“We didn’t shy away from those,” he said. “Maybe the guy loves it, the girl hates it. At least they can go have a drink and talk about it.”
It’s been years since such films were readily available. Hermosa’s Bijou Theater, which offered primarily arthouse and foreign films, closed in 1996.
“People were extremely bummed out when it closed down,” said Chris Berry, a South Bay native who worked in concessions at the theater while attending Mira Costa High School. “The last two months that it was open, the theater was packed, even if people weren’t really into movies playing. And the last weekend, there were lines down the block to get in.”
Berry, now a teacher, said the theater’s closure left a void in the South Bay’s cultural landscape. The Bijou, he said, offered a “unique, authentic movie experience much different from the corporate theaters.”
Others have since tried to resuscitate the independent spirit. Beginning in 2012, the South Bay Film Society began bringing the latest foreign and art house offerings to the South Bay, hosting between 30 and 35 films per year at the Rolling Hills AMC Theater.
Founder Randy Berler said he was inspired to create society after growing tired of having to drive to West Los Angeles to see the latest independent films. Berler realized that he had tapped into something, and that others shared his annoyance with the lack of local offerings. Berler has a film society mailing list of about 3,000 names, and films regularly sell out the day they are posted.
But Berler acknowledges that his audiences are not necessarily representative of the South Bay as a whole — the crowd tilts heavily toward older residents.
“There aren’t a lot of younger people going to subtitled films,” Berler said. “When I was in college, people loved foreign films. My generation grew up on that.”
But Berler, who consulted with Fitzgerald about the festival, is optimistic that it will get more people in the area involved in film.
“Jon has a different audience, and what he’s doing is great,” Berler said. “He’s got some really interesting social impact documentaries.”
Among the documentaries is “Voyagers Without Trace,” an award-winning documentary that will anchor the festival’s opening night gala. As patrons stream into the theater, they will be greeted by the sounds of Jenny Conlee, accordionist for indie rockers the Decemberists, who composed the film’s soundtrack.
It’s a modern update on the silent film-tradition of an accompanying organist. But it’s also a way to lend texture to the showing of a movie that many in the audience would probably never see without the festival, Fitzgerald said. And it is part of Fitzgerald’s certainty that the film experience need not end when the curtain falls.
“Someone is going to go home from one of these movies, and is going go on and learn more about that cause. It’s just going to happen,” Fitzgerald said.
For more information and a full schedule of the South Bay Film and Music Festival, see SouthBayFest.com.