OCEANSIDE — The Oceanside International Film Festival returns next week for its 13th year at the historic Sunshine Brooks Theater downtown, with the opening night featuring a conversation with film composer and musician Jason Hill.
The boutique film festival will screen 41 individual films from an impressive roster of local and international independent filmmakers, allowing attendees to view exclusive cinema in various genres. And the event’s popularity is growing.
“We had a record number of submissions this year,” said Carly Starr Brullo-Niles, the festival’s creative director and co-director of programming.
Running from Feb. 20-24, the festival will feature a week stacked with film screenings and question-and-answer panel discussions with the filmmakers.
Opening night will include a red carpet rollout at the Oceanside Museum of Art and an intimate discussion with Hill, a songwriter who composed music for David Fincher’s “Gone Girl,” “Mind Hunter,” and “Videosyncrasy,” among other projects. The one-on-one with Hill, who is also the frontman of San Diego-based punk band Louis XIV, will offer guests a behind-the-scenes look at his work to better understand the industry.
Following the red carpet, a slate of films will be shown at the Brooks Theater over several days. Filmmakers will come from as far away as South Korea to watch their work debut in Oceanside.
“It’s an amazing honor to see the world’s unique perspectives in the films,” Brullo-Niles said.
Many local filmmakers from North County will also be there.
“One of the most amazing films we will have is from Encinitas called ‘Forget Me Again,’” Brullo-Niles said. “It’s one of the most suspenseful, too.”
According to the film’s synopsis, after being introduced to a new pharmaceutical pill that allows for controlled memory loss, a young addict must untangle a web of forgotten memories to find his missing friend.
Some of the highlighted movies include “The Buildout” by Zeshaan Younus of Anaheim, “Hemet, or The Landlady Don’t Drink Tea” by Tony Olmos of Ramona, “Tasmania” by Austin Alward, “Those Were the Good Days” by Hong-Rae Lee of South Korea, and “To Fall in Love” by Michael Foster of North Hollywood.
Other locally made movies include: “Lockdown” by Kevin Waczek from Escondido; “And Yet They Speak” by Windy Marshall from Carlsbad; “Amazing Grace” by Aiden Keltner from San Diego, and “The Mad Doctor of the Intercontinental Hotel” by Michael Shane Bowles from Oceanside.
Many of the films haven’t even been released in other theaters yet.
“This is the first time many people will get to see these films,” she said.
The Soroptimist International Oceanside-Carlsbad nonprofit sponsors Saturday’s film block as its annual Women’s Film Festival event, focusing on women-related writers, directors and topics. That same evening, the film festival’s awards ceremony will announce the winning films and filmmakers of the weeklong event.
To learn more about the film festival’s schedule and to buy tickets, visit osidefilm.org.
