OCEANSIDE — This year’s Oceanside International Film Festival is going virtual.
The 10th staging of the film festival will be presented online amid COVID-19 restrictions.
The festival was looking forward to its “X” year celebration as well as its first “Sustainability and Wellness Initiative” for 2020.
Then the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, shutting down many businesses and forcing events to cancel. With the festival not until August, though, organizers had hoped the festival could still go on in person.
In the last three weeks, however, after recent outbreaks led to restrictions being put back into place, festival organizers decided to go virtual. That meant postponing the sustainability initiative.
Still, the festival will feature films related to sustainability and the environment.
There are 45 films separated into nine blocks with their own theme. Though the movies in each block share a common theme, one may be a drama while another may be a documentary or horror film.
“We don’t separate them by documentaries or dramas,” said Lou Niles, the festival’s managing director.
While one film is as short as four minutes, another film lasts nearly two hours. Most of the movies are under an hour long.
As the title of the festival suggests, the films come from all over the world, including Turkey, China, Brazil, Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, Russia, Ireland, Italy and the United States. There is a handful of films from Southern California and a few from the San Diego region in particular.
“We work really hard to bring the art community together and to bring art from all around the world to Oceanside for our community,” Niles said. “We also want to give filmmakers a platform for their work and a chance to be recognized.”
Tickets to watch the films can be purchased at osidefilm.eventive.org/welcome. Tickets are $10 to watch one block of films or $35 to watch the entire festival. The films can be accessed starting Aug. 15 and will be available through Aug. 22.
The festival will hand out more than 20 awards to the filmmakers via video on Aug. 16 at 7 p.m.
