In “Celebrating the Power of Film” (its 2023 theme), the 22nd San Diego International Film Festival will screen 91 films from among more than 3,200 submitted by countries around the globe.
Among them are movies made by local filmmakers.
Director Michael Foster’s “To Fall in Love,” based on the 2017 play written by Jennifer Lane, who also wrote the screenplay, co-stars actors Beth Gallagher and Eric Casalini. Both are familiar to San Diego theatergoers from performances on various local stages. The two performed the stage version of Lane’s script, which is propelled by a couple’s exploration of SUNY Stony Brook psychologist Arthur Aron’s relationship exercise “36 Questions to Fall in Love,” both in a house in Pacific Beach and at the 2017 San Diego International Fringe Festival.
Film festival CEO and Artistic Director Tonya Mantooth is happy to have “To Fall in Love” in this year’s lineup of world and local premieres. “The idea of the whole story unfolding by asking these questions is a really unique way of telling a universal story,” she said. “It’s such a difficult thing to make work: two people carrying all the screen time, and on top of that not wanting it to feel like a play.
“Beth and Eric did a wonderful job of really peeling back the layers of these characters in a way that’s very raw and very real.”
Foster, the director, said that when he saw the play performed and then envisioned it as a potential film, “Before Sunrise” (the much-admired, two-handed Richard Linklater film starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke) came to mind. “You can have a full movie with two people talking as long as the dialogue and characters are interesting. What Jenny wrote was intelligent and surprising.”
Having performed “To Fall in Love” live helped its actors when the camera was turned on them.
“It’s almost as if we’d rehearsed it 100 times just to make the movie,” said Casalini. “There are moments when the intimacy lends itself very well to the screen for us as performers.”
Gallagher added that, unlike in a performance of play, she and Casalini could stop and start over if necessary. “Michael (Foster) was very generous in letting us go back,” she said of the filming, “to let us get to where we wanted to be emotionally.”
Elsewhere, the festival features a variety of compelling documentaries, including “Lights, Camera, Friendship — Lodi!” which focuses on a group of young adults on the autism spectrum in workshop situations. It’s a project from Joey Travolta’s Inclusion Films.
Making its world premiere at the San Diego International Film Festival is co-producers Gary Sinise and Phil Gurin’s documentary “Brothers After War.” Mantooth calls it “a very powerful film about the military and the support of the issues they’re facing when they come back from duty.” Films of its kind “are a big part of our mission,” she added.
Another documentary Mantooth cited was “The Grab” by filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite, who made the influential “Blackfish.”
“It’s about a team of journalists who begin to uncover and connect the dots between foreign countries buying water and land rights in the U.S. to grow hay and other things to ship back to their countries,” Mantooth recounted.
Stephen Gyllenhaal’s “Uncharitable,” said Mantooth, “looks at charity watchdogs that take down nonprofits, and explores the issue of why nonprofits need to have the freedom to run more like a for-profit, so they can grow.”
Of course, beside these documentaries, the festival includes curated feature films and shorts, plus panel discussions and events with filmmakers on site.
Regardless of the kind of film being screened, Mantooth as a curator is drawn to a good story. “What I look for in any film is the storytelling,” she said. “How do they (filmmakers) take a message and how do they tell it in a way that hasn’t been told? What are the emotions and how might they move the audience?”
For a list of films and screening schedule, go to sdfilmfest.com/film-festival-2023.
Coddon is a freelance writer.
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Where: Various venues and virtual
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