People go to the movies for escapism. The film audiences flock to see everything from thrilling adventure, pulse-pounding horror or thought-provoking arthouse cinema. The Benicia Film Festival offers moviegoers young and old a chance to experience different types of motion pictures.
The film festival will take place over Labor Day weekend, Sept. 1 to 3. The festival will start projecting international movies at St. Paul’s Square, located at 120 E J St. at 6 p.m. fFiday. For the next two days, the festivities will be moved to the Majestic Theatre, located at 710 First St. The films to be shown at the festival are movies selected by a committee after a screening of over 300 films. The movies selected, mostly short films with some running a little under an hour, cover a range of subjects and topics.
Some movies showing at the films festival include “Roll Call,” a film about a disabled high schooler who auditions for an a cappella group: “The Exit,” a film about a man who wakes up after a car crash and finds himself lost in the world where no one else exists’ and “Say What! A Geriatric proposal,” the story of a young jazz musician who tries to survive aggressive grannies and other terrifying beasts at a post-concert reception.
This marks the fourth year of the Benicia Film Festival. The first festival was hosted in the Veterans Memorial Hall, and only 25 films were shown. All the films shown at the first film festival were produced locally. In the second year the program got bigger and moved to the Majestic Theatre.
“It’s a real a real drawing point because people want to come in and see the Majestic,” Helaine Bowles, administrative secretary at the Benicia Public Library said. “A lot of people haven’t seen it.”
While many of the movies were made in the United States, many other films were created by filmmakers in places like Korea, Spain, Iran, India, Israel, Finland, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Kurdistan, Singapore, Germany, France, Sweden and more. At least two of the filmmakers came from the Bay Area, including Tytus Bergstrom of Richmond’s 4-minute smartphone film “Dancing Day, I Don’t Wanna Go to Work,” and Josh Silva of Walnut Creek’s “ABC World News: The Journalism Formula,” a documentary on the formula used by the ABC network’s nightly newscast and the current state of network nightly news.
Bowles said the film festival puts extra effort in enticing out-of-towners to Benicia because they can always have people from Benicia come to the program. Bowles said she has not seen any of the films in the festival but is looking forward to checking them out.
Additionally, Bowles said people should attend the event to support Benicia.
“We had it on Labor Day because there’s not a lot going on,” Bowles said. “Kids have already started school, so it gives people something to do. I go to the movies all the time, but seeing independent films is just so much different than going to a movie theater and seeing a great film, but these are just amazing.”
The festival begings Friday at St. Paul’s Square with a gala at 6:30 p.m. The films will begin screening at 7 p.m. On Saturday, the doors to the Majestic open at 10 a.m., and the movies will be shown from 10:30 to 6:30 p.m. with hourlong breaks at 12:15 and 3:30 for people to talk and explore the town. Doors at the Majestic will open at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, and the movies will be shown from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. with two breaks in between. Ticket prices for the film festival are $40 for a single ticket or $70 for two tickets for the Friday Gala. For Saturday and Sunday, tickets are $25 for each day, $10 for students or $35 on the day of the events. People can buy their tickets at the the Benicia Public Library, Benicia Main Street or online at BeniciaFilmFestival.com. All of the proceeds of the Benicia Film Festival go to the Arts and Culture Commission, which has been trying to get more public art around the city.

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