About the Ventura Film Society
The core of the Ventura Film Society's mission is the belief that cinema has always been the most public of arts and should be deserving of a forum here in Ventura. Our Board Members and growing list of supporters and sponsors believe that the perfect cultural climate exists for establishing an imaginative and people-friendly cinema event in our city.
Our March 26-29, 2009 Festival at the Elks Lodge was dynamic and engaging from the start. We presented 73 films in 4 days. The diverse content, from local film to international features and shorts, embraced, explored and served the community under the theme of "Local Voices/Global Visions" and has left a powerful and compelling impression on the nearly three thousand people who attended. We dealt with sustainability and larger community issues in films like "FLOW", "PASSION FOR MUSIC", "WARNER KIDS" and "LIFELINE EXTENDED".
We served as a destination for veteran filmmakers (our tribute to the great American independent director Robert M. Young), new filmmakers (71/2 year old animator Karen Stewart and many students filmmakers from Brooks Institute), and new cinema (the startling original work of Andrew Huang). We are proud of the groundbreaking and unique cinema event that we created. A strong sense of purpose and community has been embraced by an outpouring of support from the public, the City of Ventura and an impressive number of supporters, volunteers and community sponsors.
The Arts Education component of the Ventura Film Society is at the heart of our "NEIGHBORHOOD CINEMA" program. This innovative and exciting outreach effort is a direct and highly interactive effort at empowering those whose stories and experiences are routinely overlooked due to cultural, age, gender, racial and economic factors. It is our primary goal to weave these and other marginalized voices and visions into the fabric of Ventura life, drawing on the vast pool of knowledge and experience lying dormant in our own community.
In a world where the traditional barriers between artistic disciplines is always changing, we recognize this exciting opportunity to present films with environmental, musical, theatre, dance, art, and poetry themes, thereby expanding the audience base of the Film Society and these partner organization, the main beneficiary being the public.
Celebrating Ventura's cultural diversity is at the center of this effort. Through VFS-sponsored efforts like our SEEDS OF LIFE Film Project, our ongoing collaboration with CAPS-TV, and planned documentaries about TORTILLA FLATS and the WAV project, the Ventura Film Society aims to have a positive and lasting effect on the community. As a vital participant in keeping the cultural links alive between us, we offer an ideal venue for celebrating self-made visions of who, what and where we are as citizens of Ventura and the world.
Cinema provides an entry point to this vast and ongoing journey of inquiry. The VFS looks forward to continuing to provide an ideal gathering place for audiences who would not usually spend time together.
The Ventura Film Society believes that moving messages between cultures and peoples is the ideal way for an arts organization like ours to operate. Having already attracted an active and diverse group of Ventura arts, business and cultural leaders, our goal is to expand the horizons of life in Ventura and remain a key part of the region's arts and cultural evolution.
