The Festival will be presenting 133 films from 13 countries including 40 that were locally-produced. The EarthVision environmental section has expanded, and will feature 9 feature-length and 18 short films that showcase the work of devoted people taking action to save and improve our threatened environment.
Tickets for our entire slate of films, parties and workshops are now available as well as information on dining and lodging for your Festival stay, and general info about Santa Cruz.
You can also download a printable version of the program guide here.
It’s the spring of 1981 and the Trogi family has just moved into a new home in the suburbs of Quebec City. No sooner are they installed in their dream house, than inflation and an economic downtown shake the foundation of their already delicate existence. 11 year-old Ricardo doesn’t know...
Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the best-selling book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, investigates ways to rapidly transform our unsustainable society into a regenerative planetary culture through a change of consciousness and the systemic implementation of ecological design. ...
8: The Mormon Proposition is an indictment of the Mormon Church's historic involvement in the promotion and passage of California's Proposition 8 and the Mormon religion's secretive, decades-long campaign against gay rights. The film takes place in California and Utah as Mormons,...
What social, economic and political environments create the mindset of a Jihadist, especially an American one? What makes a person willing to pick up a gun for their religion? Are the underlying causes purely religious? Or might religious militancy be a means of addressing chronic social,...
The clock is ticking and Lola is in a race to deliver extremely important photo proofs to her girlfriend Casey’s client meeting. Lola has only one chance to get there on time, and to save her relationship in the process. Wait, she has three chances! Inspired by the German art house...
26-year-old charmer Daniel Dembele is equal parts West African and European, and looking to make his mark on the world. Seizing the moment at a crossroads in his life, Daniel decides to return to his homeland in Mali and start a local business building solar panels - the first of its kind in the sun-drenched nation. Daniel's goal is...
Most of us are aware of the threat from global warming. But, what if global warming was just the tip of a much larger threat? What is virtually unknown to the public is that human activity is causing a Mass Extinction event, which is the greatest crisis that we have ever faced because it...
You don’t have to travel far to find fresh, original filmmaking. Join us for this program of shorts by Santa Cruz’s own film arts community.
Includes the films:
22 year-old Cole Chambers is a handsome, magnetic, talented young writer with dreams too big for his small town. When Cole gets the opportunity to bring his talents to the big city, he sees his potential for the first time. Spending...
Callum Cutter (Jonnie Hurn) is a fastidious thrity-something head of his own failing advertising agency experiencing an existential crisis as he struggles to find meaning in his soulless, corporate world. His only solace is his bi-weekly Tai Chi class and the coffee and cigarettes he is addicted to. His life needs a change...
“On the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where the road ends and the trail begins, winding 11 miles along the Na Pali Coast, is a hidden valley called Kalalau.” Some people travel there to get away, others to find themselves, but all who go there are forever impacted by the magical place. Thus starts, Drop In Drop Out: 11 Miles to...
On an orbital space platform, the crew picks up a strange object during a routine mission. It appears to be a living seed of some sort. One of the astronauts comes in direct contact with the seed, causing a pulse that causes a global brownout down on Earth.
Meanwhile on Earth, Judith is a teacher going through a crisis....
In an attempt to promote his unpublished collection of short stories, Davy Mitchell (Brian Geraghty, The Hurt Locker) embarks on a road trip with his younger, looser brother Sean (Kel O’Neill), holding book readings in anonymous bookshops and college towns. The trip proves to be a lonely and unfulfilling experience for...
The Santa Cruz Film Festival is proud to be closing its ninth edition with the locally-produced feature Etienne! Before the film begins, the SCFF Awards Ceremony will be held. Winners of the jury competitions and audience awards will be announced.
...
Mia has just turned thirty and is struggling to find herself. Her writing career is floundering, she’s just lost her job and she can’t seem to find her way. A smart mouth, bad attitude and general flakiness aren’t helping either. One weekend, Mia’s uptight sister Anna agrees to let...
Filmed over four years, Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys: Adham, a bright, precocious 17 year-old, Osama, a charming impish 16 year-old, and Nabil, a shy, artistic 18 year-old who were born into the trash trade and grew up in the world’s largest garbage village, a ghetto located on...
An uplifting fly-on-the-wall documentary that portrays the monumental time of change during the Obama campaign that led up to his presidency in 2008. Combining his own personal story with the experiences and discoveries he makes on the campaign trail, Director Satti interweaves complex cultural...
Almost everyone in the western world has heard Denny Doherty sing. As lead vocalist for The Mamas & The Papas, his radiant tenor voice is the essence of such hits as Monday, Monday and California Dreamin’. In this joyous and heartbreaking documentary, the tumultuous...
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What is HIV? What is AIDS? What is being done to cure it? These questions sent Canadian filmmaker Brent Leung on a worldwide journey, from the highest echelons of the medical research establishment to the slums of South Africa, where death and disease are the order of the day....
Jean Charles tells the true story of Jean Charles de Menezes, a young Brazilian immigrant living in London who is misidentified as a terrorist and fatally shot by police in the aftermath of the July 7, 2005 terrorist attacks that killed 52 people.
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The true story of Santa Cruz’s Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), a “collective of patients and caregivers [who have been] providing hope, building community and offering medical marijuana on a donation basis” for over a decade. In the film, we meet Valerie and Mike Corral, and follow their journey as they dedicate their...
Kohl Perry is a slacker skateboarder, with misfit friends, who spends his days skipping class, smoking weed and antagonizing the local corner-store owner. Feeling alienated and lost, he finds inspiration in the form of the school’s straight-A student, Sarah Kim. While Kohl’s life seems...
Like the best, healthiest food you can eat, these films were harvested right here in our own small, sustainable art farm.
Includes the films:
Take the 1971 Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, set it at the enigmatic headquarters of the world’s most famous skateboard conglomerate, imbue it with the off-kilter humour of Wes Anderson and the fantastical surrealism of Terry Gilliam and Michel Gondry, and you have Machotaildrop...
Guys who wear uniforms every day lead strange and fascinating lives.
Includes the films:
A dramatic and awe-inspiring feature documentary following three of the world’s greatest ski mountaineers to Mount St. Elias in their attempt to realize the longest ski descent of the world. Stunningly shot and set against the backdrop of Alaska’s brilliant beauty, Mount St. Elias traces...
Struggling to survive the worst drought since the dustbowl, three desperate Montana families hire a rainmaker, a retired New York cab driver, in a last ditch effort to save their farms. Like Burt Lancaster's magnetic Bill Starbuck in 1956’s, The Rainmaker, who barnstormed the windswept...
Drawn to the Northland, Andrés, a young farmer from Oaxaca, reaches the Mexico/US border and tries to cross over. Failing repeatedly, he settles in Tijuana to plot his next attempt. Between each try, he discovers that this depraved bordertown, his new adopted home, is quite a troubled one...
In the shocking and hilarious documentary Orgasm Inc., filmmaker Liz Canner takes a job editing erotic videos for a drug trial for a pharmaceutical company. Her employer is developing what they hope will be the first Viagra drug for women to treat a new disease: Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD)....
For 97 days, best friends J.J. Kelley and Josh Thomas traveled the 1,300-mile inside passage from Anchorage to Seattle during its rainiest summer in 15 years. Paddling in homemade wooden Pygmy kayaks, they captured exquisite footage of the natural beauty they encountered along North America’s...
Reel Fresh is a collection of pieces created by students enrolled in video production classes through either Cabrillo College Digital Media or Santa Cruz County High School Regional Occupational Program (ROP).
Specific projects...
Tenzin is a Tibetan born and raised in India. Alienated and lonely in his adopted home, he yearns to explore his true homeland. One day, he impulsively hops on his motorcycle and embarks on a personal quest: to find his identity and discover the indestructible beauty and wonders of his...
Whoever thought that Florida, with its George H.W. Bush spawned Governor, its Girls Gone Wild and its hanging chads would be a leader in new, green urban planning? Shades of Green: Sustainable Initiatives looks at what is happening in the Sunshine State as it takes needed steps towards...
Soundtrack for a Revolution tells the story of the American civil rights movement through its powerful music: the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, in paddy wagons, and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality. These songs evolved from slave...
A series of inspiring short films that showcase the works of devoted people taking action to save and improve our threatened environment.
Includes the films:
Is access to clean drinking water a basic human right, or a commodity to be bought and sold under the rules of basic capitalism? From the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car and I.O.U.S.A., Tapped is an incisive documentary that takes a blistering look at how one of Earth’s...
West Coast Premiere. The Hooping Life uncovers the real-life adventures of young mavericks transformed by the modern resurgence of hula-hooping. Today, “hooping” is vibrant with singular moves, outrageous styles, and a strong sense of community.
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Australian filmmaker and artist, George Gittoes, spent 2 years in Taliban-occupied Pakistan, risking life and limb to make a documentary about the film industry there – which is massive! Third in the world to Hollywood and Bollywood, “Taliwood” has produced hundreds of films featuring hilarious...
In a first for the Santa Cruz Film Festival, we are thrilled to present an Academy Award-nominee for Best Documentary: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
In the film, we are catapulted back to...
The Westsiders is the awe-inspiring, eye-popping tale of a special piece of Santa Cruz history: the rise and fall of The Westsiders surf gang as portrayed through the experiences of our own hometown’s surfers.
Best friends Darryl “Flea”...
Films from students of UCSC's Film + Digital Media Department.
Includes the films:
In this collection, we visit with people who are having a difficult time connecting with each other and feeling alienated.
Includes the films:
Is it possible to organize a worldwide referendum, applying the principle of "one person, one vote" to create a global democracy? Filmmaker Joel Marsden went in search of the answer to this question in this provocative new documentary.
In...
No matter what you do, the only people you have no choice about having in it are the members of your family.
Includes the films:
