Sloan Campi here, letting my cinephilia show.
The Carmel International Film Festival wrapped up this weekend, kicking off the festivities with a swanky party last Wednesday, Sept. 30 at Mission Bistro and Mad Dogs and Englishmen bike/coffee shop in Carmel. Outside the restaurant on Mission Street, I ran into a jet-lagged independent film director who had just flown in from London, but spoke in an American accent.
Isabel Moncloa Daly directed the closing film of the CIFF titled Washed Up, a magical realist romantic comedy about a woman from Cornwall that falls in love with a Selkie woman, a mythological creature that can transform between a seal and human forms. Despite living in London for filmmaking, Daly told me she grew up in New Jersey and has family in Santa Cruz. For her, it means the world that although she lives some 5,000 miles away, her family can see what she’s been working on.
It wasn’t just Daly’s family who was excited about seeing the film. Outside Mission Bistro, Daly and I ran into co-directors Annette Anderson and Lawrence Roeck who had raving reviews about Daly’s film. Roeck was quick to point out that Stephen Gyllenhaal, the father of Maggie Gyllenhaal, was also ecstatic about Washed Up, to the bit of star-struck delight in Daly’s face.
Before the CIFF, I got a chance to sit down with Roeck for a Face to Face interview for the Oct. 1 edition of the Weekly. Seeing people around Carmel attached to big Hollywood names like Gyllenhaal is a familiar experience for Roeck, who got his start in filmmaking while he was valeting cars at The Inn at Spanish Bay. It was part of this ethos that led Roeck and Anderson to revive the CIFF in 2023 along with Anderson whose résumé includes work on iconic adult animation like The Simpsons and the 2017 thriller Marshall, starring the late Chadwick Boseman. Adding to the accessibility of Hollywood in Carmel that Roeck speaks about, the festival also featured a tribute to film composer Mark Mancina, who has worked alongside many film professionals, including Clint Eastwood.
Much of this begs the question of how indie filmmakers are able to get their works noticed, since not all of them can be discovered by the Eastwoods while valeting cars. Roeck and Anderson’s team also put together several Q&A panel sessions to address these kinds of scenarios.
One of them on Oct. 1 spotlighted Stephen Mastrocola, a project coordinator at film financier company Buffalo 8 and Guadalupe Soria from Bank of America. Roeck moderated topics that rookie filmmakers should be aware of—everything from forming an LLC to obtaining business loans for their creative projects.
The weekend proved to be not just entertaining but educational for young filmmakers, with a chance for any goer to the CIFF to be exposed to actors, producers and directors finding their creative voice on screen.
It appears that film fever is gripping Monterey County, because this upcoming weekend features another event featuring these creatives—The Pinnacles Film Festival in King City. I plan to be there viewing some of the 37 films this Saturday, Oct. 10. and if you also are interested in going, or went to the CIFF, drop me a line and let me know what you thought.