Hope you’re all enjoying the dog days of summer as much as I am! But if the heat (and smoke) are getting to you, there’s nothing like the distraction of a good movie…

Festival Mozaic is screening three silent films this Friday evening (July 28) at the Fremont Theatre, with live orchestra accompaniment. If you haven’t experienced this combo (live music and film) before, you must! Click here for more details and to buy tickets.

And if you love silent films and live music, stay tuned for some exciting news about a SLO Film Fest Fall Fundraising Event you won’t want to miss…details to be announced in early August!

The Central Coast Writer’s Conference is coming up in September and the SLO Film Fest is sponsoring the opening night, featuring the Oscar-winning screenwriter of DEAD POET’S SOCIETY, Tom Schulman and a screening of that iconic movie that also won a Best Picture Oscar in 1990! Tickets are on sale now, so click here to grab some and find out what else is happening during the jam-packed 3-day conference, happening September 28-30.

And some news about films that screened at recent SLO Film Fest’s:

The exciting sailing adventure documentary, SEA GYPSIES: The Far Side of the World, is now available on iTunes! In early Feb 2014, during the iciest year on record in the Southern Ocean, Infinity and her crew of 16 left New Zealand on an 8,000 mile pacific crossing to Patagonia, with a stop in Antarctica.This expedition was undertaken with a non-ice-reinforced gypsy boat built by hand in the 1970’s, crewed by a band of wandering miscreants, with no permits or insurance and an almost non-existent budget. Now that’s adventure! They are now raising money for an even more hair-raising plan – to sail through the most northerly part of the Northwest Passage, where no one has successfully sailed. Click here to buy SEA GYPSIES and read about their newest schemes of sailing insanity.

And congrats to San Luis Obispo resident Sky Bergman and her production team on the East Coast premiere of LIVES WELL LIVED, just last week at the Maine International Film Festival. Following that is the Canadian premiere at the Lunenburg Doc Fest in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia in late September! This engaging documentary that focuses on a number of inspiring SLO County residents, is now traveling far and wide to celebrate the secrets of wit, wisdom and age with audiences far and wide. Wishing Sky and her team continued fun and success with this wonderful film with its proud roots in SLO County.

Stay cool…see you at the movies!

Wendy Eidson
SLO Film Fest Director

Ann-Margret gives short film winner John Hampian a squeeze after presenting him with the unique SLO Film Fest clapperboard award.

The 2018 SLO Film Fest is coming next March 13-18, and we are now open for film submissions!

There are three competition categories:

The George Sidney Independent Film Competition is open to filmmakers worldwide, and we accept all genres and lengths. Complete instructions are available either here, or on your choice of submission websites, Film Freeway or Withoutabox.

If you are a producer, director or writer of a new film and you live in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo or Monterey County, we encourage you to submit to our Central Coast Filmmaker Showcase. There is a discount on entry fees too!

Our youth competition, Filmmakers of Tomorrow will be open for submissions on July 7th. This is open to young filmmakers, high school age and younger.

We look forward to reviewing your films for possible inclusion in one of the world’s “Top 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” according to this spring’s coveted list in MovieMaker Magazine!

Happy Summer Solstice! Summer is here and as the thermometer rises, luxurious air-conditioned movie theaters beckon! No matter how you like to spend your summer, we hope you have a good one. And we have a few suggestions of upcoming movie-related events you won’t want to miss.

On Friday, July 28th at 7:30pm, Festival Mozaic presents the Jazz Age: Silent Films and Live Music! Composer and pianist Stephen Prutsman leads a rollicking evening of jazz music and silent films from the jazz age at the historic Fremont Theater in downtown San Luis Obispo. Prutsman will be joined by Steven Copes on violin. Then three silent films will be shown on the gigantic silver screen: The Cameraman’s Revenge (1910), Suspense (1913) and Mighty Like a Moose (1926), with world premiere musical scores written by Stephen Prutsman and co-commissioned with Spoleto Festival USA and the Schubert Club. Tickets are available online for this exciting show!

And if you love silent films, stay tuned for news about a very special SLO Film Fest event coming this fall!

The Central Coast Writer’s Conference at Cuesta College has been helping new and established writers fulfill their dreams for 33 years. Located in picturesque San Luis Obispo County, this conference has a history of excellent keynote speakers, teachers and industry professionals in attendance. The Conference is from Thursday, September 28 – September 30, 2017.

SLO Film Fest is honored to be a sponsor of the Conference this year, and will be helping to host the Opening Night event, honoring DEAD POET’S SOCIETY screenwriter, Tom Schulman, on September 28th and we hope to see you there! Please click here for more information, tickets and the full conference schedule.

At the Downtown Cinemas this summer you’ll find a wide range of movie events presented by Fathom Events. Click here for the schedule, and then plan to enjoy wine, beer and/or a snack in a comfy recliner in this great theatre located conveniently in the center of SLO (parking garage is right across the street too!)

Finally, we are looking for some new “screeners” for our 2018 Festival season. We’ll be putting the call out for movie entries in early July, and would like to add about 20 new people (over 16) to our screening committee, to watch movies from September through December this year. It’s not necessary to be a SLO County resident since it’s all online now, so let us know if you’re interested and we’ll send you an application and more details. Please email us at info@slofilmfest.org and put “Screening Committee” in the subject line.

See you at the movies!

Wendy Eidson
SLO Film Fest Director

We at the SLO Film Fest are saddened at the loss of Adam West, our 2014 Spotlight Award recipient. Our best wishes go out to his lovely family, and special thanks to son-in-law, James Tooley, who shared his entertaining documentary STARRING ADAM WEST with our audiences on opening night that year, only days before the birth of his first child.

We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to honor this gentle, funny, dignified and talented man. He was one-of-a-kind and will be sadly missed!

A little late, but worth the wait! We are delighted to release the Red Carpet Event video that was filmed by several young filmmakers from our YMCA’s Youth Institute on Saturday, March 18. If you missed the King Vidor Award event, you can enjoy it now (for free!) Josh Brolin and Jeff Bridges were very happy to be back in “SLO” and so was Turner Classic Movie’s Ben Mankiewicz, who sat down with Josh for an entertaining discussion about his career.

What a wonderful evening it was, and it will be a hard act to follow…but we’re already planning for the next one! The 2018 Festival is scheduled for March 13-18, 2018.

Please consider supporting our 24th Annual SLO Film Fest. Monetary donations and in-kind support ensure the success and longevity of the Festival, and in turn we offer some great benefits that make it very worthwhile. Click here to learn more about sponsorship levels and benefits. Movies Matter!

Festival passes are now officially on sale for the 2018 San Luis Obispo International Film Festival! Take advantage of our early-bird prices – why wait? Festival passes make great gifts for a fellow movie-lover too!

New venues, more screening times, and other changes will be implemented to make your festival experience the best it can be in March 2018. We’re also working on plans for a special fundraising event this fall, so stay tuned for news in the coming months.

The 2018 SLO Film Fest is scheduled for March 13-18, 2018 so please save the dates. We are already busy planning six manic fun-filled days of Film, Wine and Fun in San Luis Obispo, which was just named California’s “best small town to visit” on Thrillist’s 50 Best Small Towns In America.

We welcome back Paul Metchik as SLO Film Fest Board President, and thank Pacific Eye’s Ahmad Amir for his two years in that important position. Melanie Spencer joins the executive board as Treasurer, and Joette Eisengart and Gary Harkins continue in their respective positions of Secretary and Vice-President.

A quick shout-out to a few films that were recently screened at the 2016 and 2017 SLO Film Fest’s and are now enjoying successful theatrical runs in cities across the country! Congrats to Hearing is Believing and Harold & Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story, as well as The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille, which will have its LA Premiere in early June at Dances With Films.

Finally, if you’re interested in finding out how to become a festival sponsor, or make a donation to this important non-profit organization that enriches our community in so many ways, please take a look at the 2018 Sponsor Brochure. 

If you were a 2017 SLO Film Fest sponsor, we hope you’ll continue your support at 2017 prices, in effect until November 30. Movies Matter!

Click here to purchase a 2018 Festival Pass! 

See you at the movies!

Wendy Eidson
SLO Film Fest Director

Leonard Maltin received the 2017 Spotlight Award from festival founder, Mary Harris on Closing Night.

The SLO Film Fest ended this year with a surprise award for well-known film critic/author/TV personality, Leonard Maltin, followed by a fascinating discussion between him and film music experts, Brad Dechter and Michael Nowak. Maltin also showed up in a variety of places throughout the weekend as he enjoyed movies and events with his daughter Jessie, her husband Scott, and his wife, Alice.

They loved their experience in San Luis Obispo so much that they highlighted our festival and town in a podcast just released this weekend. In Maltin on Movies #123: Film Festivals, he and Jessie talk about a variety of festivals, big and small and right around 27 min, they discuss their time in SLO!

Check it out! Click here to listen.

And then mark your calendars for SLO Film Fest 2018 – March 13-18! Festival passes go on sale on May 22!

See you at the movies!

Wendy Eidson
SLO Film Fest Director