For a city that has more than its fair share of movie shoots — from Barbie’s high-speed chase along Chestnut Place to serving as Hollywood’s budget-friendly stand-in for Miami and San Diego — it’s high time that Long Beach sets aside time to celebrate it.
The inaugural Long Beach Film Festival will run Aug. 29–30, mooring its first-year slate at the historic Art Theatre on Retro Row with four feature films, multiple short film blocks and industry panel discussions.
The idea, according to organizers, came together exactly where one assumes — a kids’ birthday party at a Signal Hill playground. Festival board president Teodor Todorov struck up a conversation with local filmmaker Hunter Stiebel after spotting him with a Sundance T-shirt.
At first, Stiebel refused; it’s difficult to put together, he said, and hardly worth the headache. “It’s so much work,” he continued. But he quickly reconsidered, thinking how he’s always wanted a stronger local cinephile presence since moving to the city. “How best to find it rather than make it yourself?” said Stiebel, who now serves as the festival’s director of programming.
The festival’s four main narrative features span genres from psychological horror to romantic science fiction. Leading the slate is “Downbeat,” a 91-minute South by Southwest entry directed by Danny Madden (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) that follows a musician caught between personal relationships and artistic ambition. The lineup also includes “Ugly Cry,” an 84-minute psychological horror film directed by Mia Moore and executive produced by Lilly Wachowski (“The Matrix”), which explores an actor’s dangerous obsession with perfection following a devastating audition.
Rounding out the feature selections are “Again Again,” a time-loop romantic sci-fi feature written by and starring Mia Moore about a woman facing the terrifying uncertainty of a new day after escaping a decade-long loop, and “Rescued,” written, directed by, and starring local filmmaker DJ Hale alongside Lindsay Shaw (“Pretty Little Liars”). There will also be four 90-minute segments of short films.
Filmed on location in Long Beach, “Rescued” explores homelessness and redemption through the story of a man whose life transforms after adopting a stray dog.
Hale, who based the movie on experiences faced by himself, his friend and producer Dominique Smith, and his mother, says it’s “a tremendous honor” to show the film here. “It feels perfect, it feels like it was supposed to happen,” he said.
Moving to Long Beach in 2020, he started working on the film in late 2022 and finished in January after an eight-month hiatus to get money for production. “(Smith) just randomly got this huge settlement check from a work injury that happened years ago, and he selflessly just put a big chunk of that to restoring the project,” Hale said.
He hopes the film can dispel myths and misconceptions about being homeless, and remind people that anyone can fall into homelessness.
“A lot of times, it’s just people who are literally living paycheck to paycheck, and then something happens that is unforeseen that causes them to get behind,” Hale said. “Hours can get cut, they could lose a job, get sick for an extended period of time, so on and so forth. … It’s just a snowball effect.”
The timing of the festival — in the dead of summer and amid a boon in indie theater attendance — almost couldn’t be better. Kerstin Kansteiner, vice president of the nonprofit Art Theatre, said the venue has a lot more flexibility with its schedule in the summer as opposed to the fall and winter, when major films are shown on studio-mandated terms leading up to the awards season.
And there’s a strong appetite for independent film, she added, saying the theater has had a strong increase in ticket sales she says is tied to event programming over the past couple of years.
“This new generation is embracing film, but it’s more than just film. … I think what they’re looking for is community and an event-based experience,” Kansteiner said, adding that summer programming allows the theater to run unique screenings, Q&A sessions, and local festivals like the Cambodia Town Film Festival and QFilmFest. “It’s been very, very successful.”
Where other festivals, including new ones in Glendale and Santa Monica, have relied on grants for funding, the Long Beach festival is seeded mainly by small monetary gifts and in-kind donations, with an almost entirely volunteer-based workforce.
Organizers say they want the festival, in years ahead, to become a happy medium between a benefit for local talent and a must-stop in the region to see films that dominate the festival circuit.
“A festival that feels both world-class and deeply rooted in Long Beach,” Stiebel said. “So, at this time when film and TV production has been fleeing California, Los Angeles, even the United States … we feel that it’s time that we are able to plant a flag here locally.”
Ahead of the August weekend, festival organizers will host a fundraiser Wednesday at Wine on Second in Naples. The event features a preview of “Rescued,” along with wine and hors d’oeuvres. Proceeds will support LBFF StoryLab, a local youth filmmaking initiative.
Individual screening tickets start at $10, while $150 VIP passes offer access to an opening night party at the Queen Mary, filmmaker mixers, panel sessions, and the festival’s VIP lounge. Tickets and schedule details are available on the festival website.