The Long Beach Indie Film, Media, and Music Festival took place from October 7 to 11 at Pacific Theaters Lakewood and the Long Beach Convention Center, showing more than 100 films, web series, television pilots, and music videos from around the world.
“It’s about celebrating global diversity through film,” said Daniel Walker, the Founding Director of Long Beach Indie Film, Media, and Music Festival said. “It’s about inspiring youth to become content creators to make content.” Content consists of game design, television shows, movies, and more. He said there are films for everyone, including seniors and LGBTQ, and are about art, rock and roll, Cambodians, Latinos, and more.
The conference and college fair at Long Beach Convention Center was on Saturday, and had workshops, seminars, and panels that taught entertainment studies and higher education and careers in the arts, entertainment, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).
On Wednesday, “Play Lecuona” screened. It is a documentary that tributes Ernesto Lecuona, a Latin pianist and shows how he traveled the world playing the piano.
A film that showed on Thursday, was “Kandiyohi,” which is an action film about three 20-year-old friends and their use of drugs leads to robbing the their hometown’s crooked sheriff but their plan malfunctions.
“#Blessed” screened on Saturday and is about Dallas Mapleshade, an actress, singer, and dancer in New York City who pays a filmmaker to make a feature documentary about her life filled with troubles.
On Sunday, Oct. 10, one of the films is called “Civil Warriors,” which is about a true story of 26 African-American men from Tompkins County drafted in the U.S. Colored Troops and fought in the Civil War. The film will play at 5:30 pm
People met at Pacific Theaters and Elephant Bar in Lakewood to celebrate the first day of the festival on Wednesday.