Newport Beach Film Festival
| Location | Newport Beach, California, United States |
|---|---|
| Website | www |
The Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF) is an annual film festival held in Newport Beach in the U.S. state of California. Held in late April, the festival focuses on showcasing a diverse assortment of studio and independent films. Many films showcased at the festival have a strong international and humanitarian focus. The Newport Beach Film Festival places an emphasis on support for emerging and respected filmmakers through encouraging people of all ages and backgrounds to participate. The 17th annual Newport Beach Film Festival will be held April 21-April 28, 2016.
The Newport Beach Film Festival was established in 1999 after the failure of an earlier film festival series in the same location. This festival presents a multi genre, international range of independent and studio films. The Newport Beach Film Festival features World, North America, U.S. and West Coast premieres as well as International Spotlight Series celebrating foreign language films.
In 2013 the Newport Beach Film Festival announced a new partnership with the Orange County Music Awards; which has produced the launch of the Music Video Showcase in the festival. 2013 was the first year this genre was included in the festival.
Gregg Schwenk, co-founder of the festival, serves as the executive director-CEO. During the fest’s nascent stages, he found that “there is no better destination or backdrop for an international film festival than Newport Beach.”
The Newport Beach Film Festival has evolved into a prestigious event, attracting people from beyond the surrounding beach communities, with 30%-40% of its audience coming from outside the Orange County metro area. In 2015, the film festival programmed more than 350 films from 50 countries based on more than 3,000 submissions, quite a leap from the previous high of 2,400. That same year, the festival opened with Russell Crowe’s directorial debut, The Water Diviner, which attracted the largest interest ever for the festival in an opening-night film. According to Schwenk, the number of film buyers, sales agents and distributors — both domestic and international — who attend “has grown exponentially." In 2014, the festival reported record attendance of about 54,000 film lovers, up from previous year's then-record of 53,500.
The Newport Beach Film Festival is divided into eight competitive sections, in which filmmakers can submit their pieces to. The film categories that are shown in this festival include:
Due to the coastal location of the festival, many of the films are connected to the history of surfing, skateboarding and snowboarding. This suggests the Newport Beach Film Festivals audience base is largely dedicated to the Action Sports Cinema category.
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