Last week’s Newport Beach Film Festival brought 350 independent movies, shorts and documentaries from 40 countries to Fashion Island, Triangle Square and the Lido Theatre.
The 12th annual edition of the festival also had some star power, with movies featuring Michael C. Hall, Peter Fonda, Lucy Liu, Harvey Keitel, Zach Braff, Scott Caan, son of James Caan, and Colin Hanks, son of Tom Hanks. Screenwriter and recent Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin appeared at a writing seminar.
A standout for its sincerity and emotional draw was “Peach Pear Plum,” which was made for $80,000 in about 18 days.
To provide a context for this, the reported budget of the soon-to-be-released fourth installation of “Pirates of the Caribbean” was about $200 million.
The film mostly is set in rural Nebraska and was filmed in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles using cars and houses of friends of the crew. Friends and family members financed the movie.
The soundtrack uses mellow, indie rock, including original numbers from friends of director Alana Morshead.
The use of soft music in the absence of dialogue made for some of the more powerful moments in the film.
Samantha Genovese, an Orange County local, wrote the screenplay when she was 18.
The film begins with two men in their early 20s, played by Tyler Blackburn as Jesse and Alex Beh as Will.
The men stop at a Nebraska bar while driving from California to Chicago to see Jesse’s estranged father. Their car gets stolen. The bartender, played by Mackenzie Phillips, tells them there’s no point calling the police in such a small town—the car is long gone. Calls home prove fruitless.
The bartender and her husband, give the boys a place to stay and offer them their old car in exchange for a couple weeks of labor.
The two take the deal and end up befriending a quirky, troubled girl, Dora Bell, played by Alanna Masterson. Dora gets Jesse to open up and bonds with him over their abusive relationships with their dads.
Unable to carry out revenge on their own fathers, they each help the others to do so.
The content is heavy and heart-breaking at times. The three young cast members pull it off with seriousness and subtly. There’s a surprising amount of gravity for a movie made by a bunch of young friends.
“Peach Pear Plum” currently is looking for distribution.
Elsewhere at the festival, Costa Mesa clothing maker Volcom Inc. sponsored a youth film showcase. A collegiate category included offerings from Chapman University, California State University, Fullerton, Orange Coast College and Saddleback College students.
The event largely is staffed by volunteers with funding from sponsors. This year’s sponsors included the city of Newport Beach, Absolut Vodka, Newport Lexus, Fashion Island and Time Warner Cable. For the first time, Triangle Square in Costa Mesa hosted a majority of the screenings.
—Emily Weisburg
