The local film scene heats up this weekend with the San Clemente screening of a film about an Orange County high school student facing shame for taking his farmer's tan to school and the Santa Ana continuation of the OC Film Fiesta.
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Brian Ivie is credited as the writer-director of Farmer's Tan, but he explains on the Flashbulb Entertainment “About the Movie” page that the $3,000 picture was a collaborative effort featuring 24 lead/supporting character and 97 extras/featured characters who were filmed
at more than 25 different locations.
Zack Roman, Sarah McMenamy, Robbie Cox, Mikey
Geragos, Colby Nordberg, Cindie Haynie, Joelle Adamson, Alex Phillip and
Rachel Kennedy are listed as the stars.
The 80-minute movie “examines the comedic paradox of a
ghostly pale high school kid living in Orange County and how a 'farmer's
tan' equates to some kind of scarlet letter on any person living in a
beach town,” say the makers.
It screens at 7:30 p.m. tonight and Saturday in San Clemente High School's Triton Center, 700 Avenida Pico, San Clemente.
Tickets are $10 for adults, $7 for students. Musicians will play songs from the movie's soundtrack at 7 both nights.
Flashbulb dreams of submitting the flick to film festivals. Here's hoping it's even a fraction as good as San Clemente High grad Rian Johnson's teen detective noir Brick, parts of which he filmed on campus.
The OC Film Fiesta, which actually began Sept. 4 and continues through Sept. 19, this weekend presents an appearance by a legendary Xicana filmmaker, short films by up-and-coming directors and a classic film from Mexico's Golden Age.
And like any good weekend fiesta, it lasts into Monday night with a screening of Sandra Robbie's 2003 documentary For all the
Children/Para Todos los Niños, which is about the landmark Mendez et al v.
Westminster et al desegregation case.
This weekend's (and Monday) fiesta offerings follow:
A Crushing Love, 7 tonight in Breath of Fire Theater, 310 W. 5th St., 2nd floor, Santa Ana. Legendary Xicana filmmaker Sylvia Morales is scheduled to answer audience questions after this sequel to her groundbreaking 1979 history of Chicana women,
Chicana. The sequel honors the
achievements of labor organizer/civil rights leader Dolores Huerta,
author/educator Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez, civil rights advocate
Alicia Escalante and historian/writer Martha Cotera and
writer/playwright/educator Cherrie Moraga, whose new play Digging Up
the Dirt had its world premiere at Breath of Fire Theater.
Short Films, 3 p.m. Sunday at Calacas, 324 W. 4th St., Santa Ana. Featured are new works by up-and-coming directors (TBA). It's followed at 4 p.m. by Emilio Fernandez's Enamorada, a classic film from the Mexican Golden Age starring Maria Felix as an aristocrat who has a rocky relationship with an earthy
revolutionary general (Pedro Armendariz). A potluck reception follows the screenings.
For all the
Children/Para Todos los Niños, 7 p.m. Monday in Chapman University's Memorial Hall, Orange. Robbie's award winning documentary is screened, followed by a panel discussion and reception co-sponsored by Chapman and the Hispanic Bar Association. And it all will be preceded at 6:20 p.m. by a 20-minute civil rights “Peace of Orange” tour that
includes the last standing Mexican school from OC's segregation era. Marchers will be
greeted by mariachis on campus. The tour starts at the Orange Circle (Plaza Park).
Look for more OC Film Festival offerings on next week's Navel Gazing.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.