Teen Coastside Film Festival Contest Highlights Cinematic Talent

With the debut of the Coastside Teen Film Festival in the last few years, young filmmakers in the area were finally given the opportunity to shine. Sponsored by the libraries in Pacifica and Half Moon Bay, the 3rd annual Coastside Teen Film Festival will be held on Jan. 22, 2011.

Entry forms can be obtained at the , , or at the . The deadline to enter the festival is this Saturday, Dec. 18. Winners will receive $100 (First Place), $75 (Second Place), and $50 (Third Place). Teenagers on the Coastside from Pacifica to Pescadero are eligible to enter.

Watch last year's first-place Festival winner, "Remedios the Beauty," by Pacifica Terra Nova High School alumni (and student during the film's production) Jesse Cobb and friends which is attached in the media box to the right. Filmed in San Francisco's Mission District, the film, according to a description written by Festival volunteer Joe Devlin, is "a magical urban fable about the power of beauty," and is "steeped in Latin culture and magical realism."

The film, according to Cobb, was inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, which he had just finished reading before starting the film project. 

"We shot 'Remedios' in three days of May 2009.  I had spent that year as assistant to Scot Schneider, the film teacher at Terra Nova.  Before I graduated I wanted to try my hand at producing a more fully realized production than I had done to date," Cobb told Devlin in an interview.

Stay tuned for another story coming up featuring the 2nd place winner of last year's contest and an interview with Kayla Figard, Pacifica Library employee and main organizer for the film festival. She'll talk more about how the festival came about, and some of the most memorable entries in past festivals.

Download the movie