3 Filmmakers Hope to Launch ‘Indie’ Festival

Local filmmakers Luis Guereca, Luis Alba and Dianna Perez) can’t imagine having the $200 million needed to create a movie of “Titanic” proportions.

They know what it’s like to borrow money from friends and relatives to help finance a film, and search a swap meet for cheap film equipment.

Likewise, when Guereca needed a bright setting for his film, he painted his grandmother’s bedroom orange. When he and Alba of Oxnard needed a Vietnam cave scene, they dug up Guereca’s Oxnard backyard.

Together with Perez from Moorpark, the filmmakers have finished their first major feature film, shown at some local colleges.

So the three friends have no doubt they can pull off their next project: a film festival in November highlighting independent films, such as their own, that don’t have major studio backing but still need an audience.

“Most of the film festivals cater to the bigger productions and it’s leaving the little folks out,” said Alba, who praises nationally released films made with next-to-nothing budgets such as Kevin Smith’s “Clerks” and Robert Rodriguez’s “El Mariachi.”

The trio began accepting applications this week for the event called “Channel Islands Indie Film and Video Festival”, set for Nov. 13-15.

They plan to target students and independent filmmakers for submissions. The three Latino friends also hope to attract more minority filmmakers to the event. “There’s a lot of stories to be told and that’s why we’re doing it,” Alba said.

Yet the three don’t have much to show for their efforts. They have two sponsors but said they can’t name them. And they are still looking for small theaters in Oxnard, Ventura and Camarillo at which to hold the festival.

But they are convinced they can pull off the event, and so is Simon Balderas, owner of the county’s second largest film studio, Full Motion, in Ventura. Balderas, who employed Guereca to help produce feature films several years ago, has confidence that he and his friends will be successful.

“If anybody can pull it off, I believe it will be a person such as him,” Balderas said. “He’s well-managed and pretty steadfast. He’s been active in the community of production for a long time.”

Guereca doesn’t expect the first festival to draw much backing and anticipates some skepticism.

“There may be a lot of companies that question what we do,” he said. “Is it really going to happen? Is there a big enough response from the public to check it out?

“I’m not expecting a lot of sponsors to help us,” he added. “But once they see it this year, I think it will build up.”

So far, UCLA’s Latino/Chicano TV & Film Assn. has agreed to send submissions to the festival, Guereca said. The trio also plans to send applications to all the film schools in the state and advertise the event in film publications.

More venues for showing independent films are needed, especially considering how hard it is to make them, Balderas said.

“Independent filmmaking is extremely difficult in every possible regard--from raising money to getting the right creative people to collaborate with,” he said. “It’s really miraculous if any production is independently made.”

The three filmmakers understand this. They are used to making do with whatever they have to create films.

To this day, the bedroom of Guereca’s grandmother is an orange-sherbet color. Without money for a set, Guereca had to use his family’s home in Oxnard to create a film scene. He couldn’t use the stark white wall, so he bought cheap orange house paint to achieve a vibrant background.

From his grandmother, “I hear every two weeks that I need to paint it white again,” Guereca said, laughing.

Alba and Guereca also recalled how they once needed to create a Vietnam jungle set for a night war scene in a cave.

The two ripped out patches of dirt from Guereca’s backyard, uprooted some plants and rocks from a local park, and used a pickup truck to load dirt from the home of Alba’s parents.

Then they brought it all into Guereca’s garage to create the cave scene. By the time his mother came to peek into the garage, “the spiders were already making their homes” there, Guereca joked.

In the never-ending search for cheap film equipment, the three constantly browse the Recycler and Penny Saver publications. Perez recently called Alba and Guereca about a super 8 movie camera she saw at a Camarillo garage sale. The two hurried over and snapped it up for $8.

“That’s what’s great about independent filmmaking,” Balderas said. “You have to be innovative because you don’t have the budget and the film-crew expertise.”

Alba and Guereca met about nine years ago. Both graduated from Cal State Northridge and were working at a Wherehouse store in Oxnard. Alba majored in theater and Guereca in film.

Both toyed with the idea of making films and, after talking, decided they would give it a try.

Using a $5 super 8 camera they bought at a swap meet, the two filmed “Special Delivery,” starring Alba and a teddy bear. Alba’s character, who has a fear of open spaces, is eventually lured out of the house by his teddy bear.

Since then, the duo has created five short films. Last year, Perez, who has written a number of movie scripts and helps make films at another production firm, joined Guereca and Alba in creating their first long film: a one-hour, 15-minute piece called “Vanish,” about a twentysomething Latino male struggling to reveal his homosexuality.

The film festival, they say, should create opportunities for them and other struggling independent filmmakers. They hope to continue the event annually.

“After we prove we can do it, I don’t see why they [backers] won’t support us in the future,” Guereca said.