This year’s Watsonville Film Festival presents 20 Latinx films online March 5-13, 2021.
Click here to View trailers from selected films of the 2021 Watsonville Film Festival.
What’s new?
Because this year’s festival will be entirely virtual, organizers have chosen to present it on a professional streaming platform called Eventive, which has been used by festivals across the globe. WFF Executive Director Consuelo Alba told us it will take the event “to the next level.”
“With everything being digital, it was important for us to offer the very best in quality,” she said. “And working closely with filmmakers… we need to be sure to protect their work. This is a big step forward for that.”
For the community
WFF invited the community to help create its own film project, “We Are Watsonville.” People submitted photographs and/or short videos that represent Watsonville. Participants also filmed themselves saying one word that describes what Watsonville means to them, and why.
The completed film, compiled by Inspira Studios, will be presented during a kickoff event on March 5.
Making up for last year
Last year’s festival was the first local event to be canceled because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Alba told us that film director Melissa Elizondo was about to board a plane from Mexico bound for the festival when the world start shutting down in an attempt to quell the virus.
One of Elizondo’s films, “The Sower,” and will play at this year’s festival, which features award-winning documentaries, shorts and local work.
“We might not be Sundance, but our films are of the same quality,” she said. “We’re really looking forward to sharing them.”
Stick around
In addition to film screenings, the festival will also host virtual Q&A sessions with filmmakers and actors, and hold a number of events.
On the final day, WFF is teaming up with the Kuumbwa Jazz Center for “Virtual Fandango,” which will feature a screening of the award-winning documentary “Fandango at the Wall.”
The film follows multi-Grammy Award winners Arturo O’Farrill and Kabir Sehgal as they prepare to record a live album at the U.S.–Mexico border wall.
