Santa Cruz Film Festival to occupy local movie venues this week

The indie film industry might never get back to its pre-streaming, pre-COVID, pre-superheroes-all-the-time era. But for a few days this week, at least in Santa Cruz, it may feel like the good old days. 

After a three-year absence, the Santa Cruz Film Festival comes roaring back this week with a go-big-or-go-home spirit, with an opening-night party, screenings in four local venues, and public Q&A forums with several filmmakers and artists. 

It’s all set to take flight Wednesday night with a doubleheader of attention-getting events. First, there’s the opening-night film, Annapurna Sriram’s surrealist absurdist sex comedy “F*cktoys” at the Del Mar Theatre, beginning at 7 p.m. Then, a few blocks away at the Museum of Art & History, at 9 p.m., the SCFF launches with a splashy 25th anniversary kick-off gala, free for those who RSVP, featuring live music, food and encounters with filmmakers and fellow film-lovers. 

The SCFF was established back in 2000 under the leadership of Jane Sullivan, who put together ambitious programs as well as Hollywood-style red-carpet events with such figures as Neil Young and Paul “Pee-wee Herman” Reubens, in an age when the film festival ecosystem was vital to the launch of an independently produced film. 

After Sullivan’s departure in 2009, the festival scaled back and moved around on the annual calendar, and honed its focus to Santa Cruz County and Monterey Bay-based filmmakers. In 2020, the festival went dark due to the pandemic. It returned in 2022, but again went on hiatus, until this year when new energy emerged with new executive director Paul Bronislaw Kmiec and director of operations Alanna Lee Nickles. Providing a bridge to the festival’s past is programming director Logan Walker, the festival’s primary programming curator for the past decade. 

This year’s SCFF will present multiple events each night through Sunday. Here are some highlights of the 2025 program:

Thursday

Los Angeles Times reporter Rosanna Xia teams up with director Daniel Straub to tell the story of the dumping of toxic waste off the coast of Southern California dating back to the years following World War II in the acclaimed documentary “Out of Plain Sight.” Xia, Straub and David Valentine, the man who first discovered the barrels of toxic waste near Catalina Island, will be on hand for an after-screening Q&A.

That will be preceded by the short film “When the Storms Hit,” which documents Lookout photographer Kevin Painchaud and Lookout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the storms that battered the coast in the winter of 2023. 

The program takes place at the Colligan Theater at 6:30 p.m.

Also on Thursday, legendary Santa Cruz graphic illustrator Jim Phillips is the subject of a documentary film titled “Art and Life,” which tells the story of his quintessential Santa Cruz life. Phillips and director John Makens will be on hand for a post-screening Q&A, with legendary skateboarder Judi Oyama. 

Paired with the Phillips doc is a short film following skateboarder Sean Taylor around his favorite skating haunts in San Diego titled “Love Letters: A Love Note to Skateboarding.”

The films will be screened at the Del Mar at 7 p.m. 

For those with a more adventurous bent, Thursday also features “Dreams In Motion,” a showcase of experimental and avant-garde short animated films, which touch on everything from karaoke to mortality. “Dreams” takes place at Indexical at the Tannery at 8:30 p.m. It’s repeated on Friday at 7 p.m. 

Friday

The 2024 documentary “Join the Club” zeroes in on Dennis Peron, the late San Francisco activist who, after his lover died of AIDS in 1990, decided to devote his life to making cannabis a legal option for the sick and dying. He co-founded the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, and then co-authored Proposition 215, the historic medical-marijuana measure. Directors Kip Andersen and Chris O’Connell will be on hand for a post-film Q&A. 

The film will be screened at the Colligan Theater at 7 p.m.

Also on Friday, The 418 Project in Santa Cruz is the site for a documentary focusing  on the life and work of drag queen star Miss Peppermint. “A Deeper Love: The Story of Miss Peppermint” is a tribute to a trans pioneer and a trailblazing performer. The filmmakers will participate in a Q&A after the film. 

Preceding the feature documentary is the short film “Don’t Cry for Me All You Drag Queens,” director Kristal Sotomayor’s tribute to legendary drag queen Mother Cavallucci.

The films will be shown at The 418 Project at 7:30 p.m. 

The SCFF moves to a new venue for a Friday afterparty. Hwy17 Studios — which thankfully is not on Highway 17 — will be the site for a free party for SCFF fans and filmmakers. Hwy17 Studios is a bona fide film production studio on Santa Cruz’s Westside that allows local filmmakers the tools they need for their visions, from studio rentals to equipment and crew help. The afterparty gets started at 9 p.m. at Hwy17 Studios, 831 Almar Ave., Santa Cruz. 

Saturday

On Saturday, the SCFF gets introspective with a panel discussion all about independent filmmaking in the Santa Cruz/Monterey area, including local filmmakers and film festival directors across the region. “The Future is Local” promises to examine what it will take to create and cultivate a rich indie-film subculture in the region. 

The free event takes place at the Hotel Paradox, beginning at 11 a.m. 

On Saturday afternoon, a collection of shorts, “Central Coast Shorts: Crossroads of Longing and Belonging,” showcases the work of local filmmakers and the stories of local subjects in both documentary and narrative formats. The shorts program takes place at the Colligan Theater, beginning at 4:30 p.m.

Another shorts program highlights the eccentric and downright weird. “Shorts After Dark: Twisted Oddities” includes a self-aware car, a haunted bidet, and an online dating experience that turns into a game of combining body parts. It’s all together in one show at The 418 Project, beginning at 7:45 p.m.

Sunday

The SCFF closes with a couple of promising screenings, including “A Little Fellow: The Legacy of A.P. Giannini,” the story of the man who began San Francisco’s Bank of Italy, which eventually evolved into the powerful Bank of America. Director Davide Fiore will be on hand to chat about Giannini and his documentary after the screening, taking place at the Colligan Theater at 2:15 p.m. 

A pair of Santa Cruz County’s most adventurous artists are the focus of the documentary “Playing With Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency.” Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, who have been tweaking sexual attitudes on the edge of queer culture for decades, were among the many who were evacuated during the CZU fires in 2020. This eye-opening film goes along with the partners in art and life as they come to terms with fire as both a danger and a life-giving force. 

“Playing With Fire” lights up the Colligan Theater, beginning at 4:30 p.m. 

The SCFF’s closing-night film is “Outerlands,” a narrative feature from filmmaker Elena Oxman about the unlikely bond between a nonbinary nanny and a young girl mysteriously abandoned by her mother. Writer/director Oxman visits Santa Cruz to greet filmgoers and participate in a post-film Q&A. The film will be screened at the Colligan Theater at 6:30 p.m. 

And, when it’s all over, the Santa Cruz Film Festival takes a bow with its closing night awards ceremony, which takes place at Woodhouse Blending & Brewing at 8:45 p.m. 

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.