Water

[fvplayer src=”https://ojaifilmfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/93f284d6-WCN_Water_Preview.mov” width=”1280″ height=”720″] Sunday, November 5, 7 pm, Chaparral Auditorium Sunday, November 12, 7 pm, Ojai Art Center Theater 2017, USA, Director: Mark Knight, Producer: Jim Wilmer; 4 min. Take a whirlwind tour of spectacular glaciers, waterfalls, beaches, rivers and waterways. From Iceland and Brazil to the United States Read more…

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: ED ASNER Award Winning Actor and Activist

Versatile, committed, eloquent and talented are all adjectives that describe actor/activist and award-winning actor Ed Asner. The former president of the Screen Actors Guild and 60-year entertainment veteran starred as Carl Fredricksen in Pixar’s Oscar-winning Best Picture Up! Asner has made dozens of motion pictures including They Call Me Mister Read more…

Green Light

2016, Republic of Korea, Director: Seongmin Kim; 15 min. In the near future, a nuclear holocaust destroys the earth’s ecosystem. Then Mari, the lone survivor of a laboratory established to restore the planet, stumbles upon M626, a robot soldier. As the two forge a strong bond, they are pursued by Read more…

Tab Hunter Confidential

Screening of Tab Hunter Confidential with Tab Hunter and Allan Glaser, Saturday, November 5, 5:15-8 PM – Ojai Art Center Born Arthur Andrew Kelm on July 11, 1931, Tab Hunter broke into film at the age of 19, starring opposite Linda Darnell in Island of Desire. An instant success, Hunter Read more…

Student Filmmakers Program

Friday, November 4 9 AM–2 PM at Ojai Art Center The Student Filmmakers Program is offered to all Ventura County high schools through their filmmaking programs. Students will select from 2-3 workshop options for each session. Workshop topics will address the components of effective filmmaking, post-production sound quality, screenwriting tips, Read more…

Ojai Young Filmmakers Competition

Friday, November 11 9–11:30 AM Ojai Art Center Theater Under the generous auspices of the Ojai Film Festival, the Ojai Film Society presents the winning films of its 2016 Ojai Young Filmmakers competition. The presentation will be followed by a student Q&A and a reception.

Polyfaces

2015, Australia, Directors: Lisa Heenan and Isaebella Doherty, Producer: Lisa Heenan; 90 min. Set in the stunning Shenandoah Valley of northern Virginia, ‘Polyface Farm’ is led by “the world’s most innovative farmer” (TIME), uses no chemicals, and feeds over 6,000 families and numerous restaurants and food outlets within a three-hour Read more…

Dispatches from the Gulf

2016, USA, Director: Hal Weiner, Producer: Marilyn Weiner; 55 min. Six years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster –the biggest oil spill in U.S. history – a global team of scientists works to understand its environmental impact on humans, wildlife, and the ecosystem with the ultimate goal of learning how to Read more…

Death by Design

2015, USA, Director: Sue Williams, Producers: Hilary Klotz Steinman and Sue Williams; 63 min. By 2020, four billion people will have a personal computer. Five billion will own a mobile phone. From secretive Chinese factories to a ravaged community in New York and the high-tech corridors of Silicon Valley, filmmaker Read more…

Crossing Bhutan

2016, USA, Director: Ben Henretig, Producer: Andrea Chung; 58 min. Bhutan is known as the last Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom and one of the happiest places on earth. Crossing Bhutan tells the story of four veteran athletes who explore Bhutan’s enigmatic policy of Gross National Happiness, making the first 485-mile, border-to-border Read more…

Robert Bly: A Thousand Years of Joy

2015, USA, Director: Haydn Reiss, Producers: Dominic Howes and Haydn Reiss; 81 min. Celebrate the life and work of Robert Bly—poet, translator, mythologist, social activist and gadfly. Featuring contributions by actor/activists Peter Coyote and Martin Sheen, drummer John Densmore of The Doors, anthropologist Margaret Mead, and mythologists Michael Meade and Read more…

The March of the White Elephants

2015, South Africa, Director: Craig Tanner, Producers: Laura Burocco, Dan Jawitz, Bridget Pickering, and Craig Tanner; 52 min. Filmed during the dramatic protests against the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, this hard-hitting documentary exposes the corruption of FIFA, which pockets billions while host countries must confront a legacy of economic Read more…

Under the Gun

2016, USA, Director: Stephanie Soechtig, Producer: Katie Couric; 105 min. Despite an epidemic of mass shootings, American society remains deeply divided over the issue of gun control. Under the Gun provides a balanced, in-depth examination of this polarizing controversy and gives a human face to the crisis scarring the conscience Read more…

Growing Up Coy

2016, USA, Director and Producer: Eric Juhola; 82 min. Growing Up Coy follows the Mathis family as they advocate for their gender non-conforming child’s right to use the girl’s bathroom at her elementary school. The resulting landmark civil rights case raises important questions about what it means to grow up Read more…

Finding Oscar

2016, USA, Director: Ryan Suffern, Producers: Frank Marshall, Ryan Suffern; 100 min. Raised by the very soldiers who killed their family members, Oscar and Ramiro are the only living witnesses to human rights violations perpetrated by the Guatemalan government. For one of them, the fight to bring war criminals to Read more…

Jackson

2016, USA, Director and Producer: Maisie Crow; 90 min. Set against the backdrop of the fight over the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, this film is an intimate, first-of-its-kind look inside the issues surrounding abortion through three women who stand on all sides of this debate and live at a Read more…

Living with Fire

2016, USA, Director and Producer: Claire M. Andreae; 14 min. Wildfires are a recurring phenomenon in California and an integral part of its ecosystem. Now, global climate change is having unanticipated effects on wildfire behavior. Living with Fire examines the interplay between wildfires and climate change and explores possible solutions Read more…

Return to Zanskar

2016, United Kingdom, Directors: Daniel Bull and Bryan Liptzin, Producers: Daniel Bull and Bryan Liptzin; 23 min. Thirty years after their first visit, two American college friends return to an ancient Buddhist monastery high in the Himalayas. There, they reconnect with their past, and witness a culture being dragged into Read more…

Caste a Wave

2015, USA, Director: Fancy Fechser, Producers: Cecil Campanaro, Fancy Fechser, Danny Klein, Krish Makhija, and Nick Tramontano; 22 min. Although the word “surf” originated in India in 1599, the sport has only gained a foothold there in the last decade. In this film, professional surfer Brad Gerlach teaches residents of Read more…

Sea Change

2015, USA, Director and Producer: John Antonelli; 22 min. Half a million tribal people are threatened by the impending GIBE III dam that will diminish the flow of water to Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. Sea Change chronicles the struggles of Turkana native Ikal Angelei as she returns home and Read more…

Step by Step

2016, USA, Director: Michael Rogers, Producer: Meghan Shea; 11 min. Two men—a quadriplegic and a Paralympian—face more challenges in a day than some people experience in a lifetime. Undaunted, the two men launch on a 35-kilometer trek over a Tibetan plateau. In their quest to overcome adversity, the men are Read more…

Elk River

2016, USA, Directors: Jenny Nichols and Joe Riis, Producer: Arthur Middleton; 28 min. Follow a herd of elk as they navigate snowy mountain passes and treacherous river crossings to reach the summer pasturelands inside Yellowstone National Park’s protected boundaries. Elk River documents the migration of the elk and the backcountry Read more…

The More Things Change

2015, USA, Director: Nathan Myers, Producers: Sean Doherty and Tim Russo; 26 min. When famed surfer Gerry Lopez first surfed Uluwatu in 1974, the fabled Balinese beach was empty, pristine, and magical. Forty years later, Lopez returns to discover a crowded, developed metropolis. Undeterred, Lopez uses yoga and surfing to Read more…