Nothing motivates like a little friendly competition, so a new spinoff film event coming to the State Theatre is meant to inspire Modesto’s growing community of filmmakers to continue working on their craft.
On Saturday, the downtown theater will host the first-ever Modesto Film Invitational. The showcase of local filmmakers’ work will feature past participants in the Modesto 48 Hour Film Competition.
Started in 2019, the local film competition, or the “Modesto 48,” offers local artists the opportunity to create original 5-minute short films over a 48-hour period and compete for one of 16 slots to be shown on the big screen, cash prizes and awards. This year, over 60 teams entered the competition.
This first spinoff event is dedicated to celebrating previous winners in an invitational screening, where a group of 11 directors vie for the recognition from their peers in an all-star-style event.
All participants who were invited to MFI are veterans of the local film scene. Those chosen have won the top prize of best picture, won multiple awards, or have been in the top 16 every time that they compete.
“I wanted this to be something where we’re here for the love of filmmaking. We’re here for us to be able to say, ‘Modesto, these are your luminaries of filmmaking right now. These are people who are engaged in the community, who are engaged in filmmaking, in their craft, and who do it very, very well. And so let’s give them the chance to shine,’” said Andrew Wong, the event’s creator and owner of ReTold Productions in San Francisco which is co-sponsoring.
Filmmakers were given a week to create a 10-minute short film that is guaranteed to be shown at the invitational. Instead of cash and prizes from sponsors, the top prize will be a director’s chair signed by all the participants.
“Everyone knows there’s no prize money on the line, there’s no judges, there’s only glory,” he said.
Wong said that while MFI is not an official competition, there is a competitive feel within the community.
“One director is going to have basically the endorsement of the collective,” Wong said. “It’ll be a very metaphorical endorsement of the skill and talent of that one filmmaker.”
For participants like Sky Tallone, a film instructor at Modesto Junior College and Modesto 48 veteran filmmaker, MFI feels like a celebration and a send off.
“I think this is kind of symbolic,” she said, “We have all these new young students coming into the scene. We might not be competing anymore. We might be kind of moving on to bigger projects and trying to be more mentors to the newcomers coming in to compete. Now let’s move on to a whole new wave of artists.”
As an educator of the craft, she finds herself working alongside her students more and more, and would like to make sure they have the support they need to develop their skills.
Wong said, while growing up in Modesto despite it being the hometown of legendary moviemaker George Lucas, he could still count all the local filmmakers on one hand. Since moving to San Francisco over a decade ago, he continued to create with people in the Central Valley.
Since its inception, the Modesto 48 events have grown and even sold out the 550-seat theater twice.
“I can’t even fathom how many people are here who are part of my community,” he said.
“I really do feel the strength and the warmth that is in the Central Valley film community, specifically Modesto. I just think there’s an underdog mentality, there’s a hunger, there’s a warmth and just a lack of narcissism that I just really appreciate,” Wong said.
One of this year’s 48-hour competition winners, Logan Miller, said he feels the same about the warmth in the local film community.
He sees Modesto as a place that truly nurtures creativity in filmmaking. Besides the competition and community, he sees how local businesses, like the State, do its part in encouraging his neighbors to consistently create art.
Before finding the competition, Miller had all-but let go of his dream of making films for the big screen. This changed after he and his team won best picture in this year’s Modesto 48, as first-time competitors.
“It was so surreal to see even just a short film on a screen bigger than I had ever seen before,” Miller said, “It was like a confidence booster, even if I never make a feature length film that’s successful, it was really special to know that I cared enough about movies and I followed through enough in my life that I got here and I was able to see something, even if it’s just this little five minute movie on the big screen,” he said.
After this year’s invitational, Wong plans to create more opportunities for spinoff events to give his peers more reasons to keep creating. The next invitational will be in five years, to ensure enough time to gather more all stars.
“Everything you see at this screening is made specifically for this competition, and this art would not exist if it wasn’t for this event. I’m not looking for people to make a perfect film. I want them to just get a film done. Because filmmakers are plagued by perfectionism, by procrastination, so the act of actually just making something and finishing it is very powerful,” Wong said.
The Modesto Film Invitational will begin at 6 p.m. (doors open at 5 p.m.) Saturday, Sept. 6 at the State Theatre, 1307 J St. Tickets are $18 online.
Vivienne Aguilar is a reporter for The Modesto Focus, a project of the Central Valley Journalism Collaborative. Contact Aguilar at vivienne@cvlocaljournalism.org.