The Oscars have barely settled on their new shelves, but the thirst for award-worthy cinema remains unslaked. Next year’s crop of hopefuls is queuing up for release while the latest winners—One Battle, Sinners, Hamnet and the foreign favorite Sirat—continue playing on local screens.
But last year’s best still have a lot to offer, in the field of short films as well as features. Pamela and Kirk Demorest urge the community to relive the best moments of last year’s three-day long “Healdsburg International Short Film Festival” in April at the Raven.
The founding couple split up the audience favorites from last fall’s festival into two blocks, each to run three times to give film fans a chance to see them all. Those who caught them the first time might well like to see them again, and those who did not now have the chance.
“There are usually some fun surprises for us in the line-up of our ‘Audience Favorites’ program,” said co-founder Pamela Demorest. “Some films resonate more with our audience than they did with our celebrity jury, and we always want our guests to feel like a vital part of the process.”
The program is curated entirely from the highest-rated films as voted by last year’s attendees, but as it was forwarded to the festival judges (including Tom Waits, Laraine Newman, Ed Begley Jr. and others) the selection has added weight.
Each screening carries separate admission and each block consists of about seven films, lasting over an hour. The “Volume 1” selection includes entries from Norway, Croatia, Luxembourg and the United States; “Volume 2” shows shorts from Spain, Ireland, Scotland and, again, the United States. Screenings take place Saturday and Sunday, April 11-12, at 2pm, 5pm and 7:30pm at the Raven Performing Arts Theater, where the full, three-day festival arrives in September 2026.
Just a crooked block away sits the True West Film Center, which despite its baffling logo delivers on its promise of community excitement and education. The education part was exemplified by the recent “Fresh Takes Student Film Festival” on March 14. The event included 15 short films by Sonoma County filmmakers in elementary, middle and high schools for an audience of family members and friends—no public tickets were available.
But for the kids it was fun: Four North Bay classic car clubs provided limousine service for student filmmakers, chauffeuring them in vintage vehicles before they “walked the red carpet” at True West Film Center. The Sonoma County Office of Education sponsored the festival.
Coming up on April 17 the Film Center presents an “Almost Famous Evening with Cameron Crowe,” writer and director of the GenX movie touchstone. Contemporary writer Ben Fong-Torres will be on hand as well—the two met in the San Francisco offices of Rolling Stone and Fong-Torres is a character in the 2000 movie, set in the year 1973.
Though Almost Famous defined an earlier part of his career, it was as a director that Crowe became more than a juvenile journalist. Tom Cruise’s Jerry McGuire preceded Famous, while Vanilla Sky immediately followed it. And lest one forget he wrote the book, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
The “Almost Famous” event is elaborate and includes a private reception at Harris Gallery; dinner and wine at the Film Center with live, era-appropriate music; the screening of the original movie (starring Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand and Kate Hudson); and a follow-up question period with Crowe, Fong-Torres and the film center’s artistic director, John Cooper. Tickets range from $350 to $1,500, to benefit the True West Film Center, at 371 Healdsburg Ave.
