By Daily Press Staff Writer
W ith world renown film schools within arm’s reach and inspiring scenic views of the ocean, Santa Monica is the home of choice for both aspiring and established screenwriters as well as filmmakers. Two upcoming film festivals — the 8th Annual Malibu International Film Festival and the relatively new TriBeCa Film Festival in New York City — will showcase local talent, each person hoping for the chance to make it big.
“It has become the new Hollywood,” David Katz, a producer and founder of the Malibu International Film Festival, said of Malibu and Santa Monica.
Founded in 1997, the Malibu International Film Festival was created as a sort of meet and greet for struggling independent filmmakers to establish contacts with executives in the film industry.
Growing up in the world of film as the son of studio executive Marty Katz who produced films such as “Reindeer Games” and “Man of the House,” David Katz has always had connections in Hollywood, but still found it difficult to establish himself as a legitimate force in the industry.
“The many other independent filmmakers don’t have the connections I grew up with and could benefit from this merger of the independent film world and...the working people in the film industry,” Katz said.
The event has achieved widespread popularity amongst young talent over the past decade, from about 180 submissions in the festival’s inception year to more than 2,000 this year.
The film festival will finally give Santa Monica resident and Malibu native Sarah Vaill an American venue to premiere her documentary, titled “Women with Altitude.”
The documentary tells the story of seven women, each a victim of domestic violence, who climb the peak of Huayna Potosi in Bolivia. The purpose of the trek for these women was to draw strength from the experience of tackling what seems to be an insurmountable task for some — climbing a 20,000-foot mountain. It’s the story that is seldom told in cases of domestic violence — the strength that these women lose in being victimized, said Vaill, a victim of domestic abuse who participated as one of the seven women.
When Vaill joined the International Documentary Association a few years ago, she was surprised to learn that documentaries typically take anywhere from four to seven years to complete. She didn’t believe the statistic as she started producing “Women with Altitude” with her twin sister Susan Vaill, an editor with the ABC show “Grey’s Anatomy.”
But five years after they began filming “Women with Altitude,” the documentary will finally have its American debut at the Malibu International Film Festival. The documentary had its initial debut at the Whistler Film Festival in Canada last year.
“This is a story for everyone,” Vaill said. The Malibu Film Festival will begin Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Aero Theatre and conclude with an awards ceremony Monday night in Malibu.
The other film festival in Manhattan Young Kim hopes the TriBeCa Film Festival will be springboard to a fruitful film career.
The USC film school graduate is one of three up and coming filmmakers from Santa Monica who have the opportunity to prove themselves through one-on-one meetings with film executives through the festival’s All Access program.
Founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff as a way to revitalize Lower Manhattan following the Sept. 11 attacks, the TriBeCa Film Festival has grown to become one of the premier film festivals in the country.
Now in its fourth year, TriBeCa All Access allows directors and screenwriters the chance to present their proposals to more than 100 investors and producers.
“Hopefully, this will be my first feature,” Kim said of his screenplay, “Hyung’s Overture.”
After the backlash that Middle Eastern immigrants faced following the terrorist attacks, Kim decided to write a heartwarm-ing and uplifting story about the immigration experience.
“Hyung’s Overture” tells the story of an immigrant Korean family that establishes a home in the Bronx. The story centers on the sacrifices that the eldest son in the family makes in giving up his career aspirations to run the family business to help his younger brother become a world-class violinist.
An immigrant from Korea himself, Kim said he drew from personal experience while drafting the screenplay.
The native New Yorker moved to Santa Monica five years ago to attend USC film school where he received a masters in 2004.
“Writing screenplays is such a personal experience and what I enjoy about it is to be able to share that emotion and your experience with an audience,” Kim said.
A more seasoned screenwriter who has participated in 60 film festivals, Santa Monica resident Ben Rehkl will be pitching a story of the tumultuous relationship between a New York City sanitation worker and his son. Serving as the back story for the movie is a strike of sanitation workers and how it affects the city.
Fascinated with the topic of trash since he was a film student at New York University, Rehkl co-wrote the screenplay with John Campo, a former sanitation worker Rehkl met while he worked on his senior thesis project at NYU, a film that also examined the trash situation in New York City.
It was in the 1960s when the most recent citywide sanitation strike occurred, resulting in more than 10,000 tons of garbage being left on the streets of New York. The most recent private waste collection strike was in 1994, Rehkl said.
In researching his senior thesis, Rehkl spent one day every week for a few months, throwing on the city sanitation green uniform at the crack of dawn to pick up garbage.
“One of the things I realized when I started [researching] trash is it is an infrastructure taken for granted,” he said.
The TriBeCa Film Festival will take place from April 25 to May 6.
For more information, visit the festivals Web sites at www.malibufilmfestival.com and www.tribecafilmfestival.org.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 12, 2007. Read the original PDF.