Newport Beach Film Festival News and Notes

Randy Parsons, France bound.

David Aldrich's short film Randy Parsons: American Luthier screened Monday at NBFF, but the documentary on the Seattle-based guitar maker for the likes of Jimmy Page, Joe Perry and Jack White is continuing on the festival circuit in a big way, being chosen for the American Pavilion program May 22-24 at the Cannes International Film Festival, as well as the Short Film Corner, Festival de Cannes. Randy Parsons: American Luthier has already entertained audiences at more than 20 film festivals across the U.S. Aldrich says he was inspired to make the doc after seeing Parsons, who had been setting up the filmmaker's guitars for years, in Davis Guggenheim's film It Might Get Loud.

"I had no idea that he was making guitars for Jack White, so I stopped by his shop and told him I wanted to shoot a short film about his work," Aldrich reports. "Luckily for me, he said yes."

Jones in Freedom Writers.

Erin Gruwell, the teacher out of Newport Beach at the center of the documentary Stories of an Undeclared War, which rolled Sunday evening at Triangle Square, has been following the cases against the murderers of Armand Jones, a young actor who played a student in Hollywood's version of Gruwell's life story, Freedom Writers.

Her Freedom Writers Foundation keeps her popping around the country to help train teachers and students, but Gruwell has attended some hearings in the murder case, including sentencing last month.

"It was such a tragedy," she says before confiding, "I feel a little bit guilty."

She explained she and others lobbied the filmmakers to hire real kids, not child actors, to reflect the diversity of her classrooms at Wilson High in Long Beach.

"It was unheard of, but they wanted to go out and interview thouands of kids," Gruwell recalled. "They did not want a star from a Disney show or a dancer from a high school musical. Armand was one of those real kids they cast. He had a feel-good story, coming from a gang-infested area and pulling himself up by his bootstraps."

Gruwell has noticed all kinds of circles during the Freedom Writers experience, such as her coming from Newport Beach, working in Long Beach and then bringing her students back to Newport's Lido Theatre to see films like Hoop Dreams and Schindler's List--and now again to the Newport Beach Film Festival.

Sadly, another such circle was played out when Jones was gunned down in Orange County, outside an Anaheim restaurant to be exact.

"To be shot on the night they were celebrating that he just wrapped a movie is a tragedy," she says.

Archival footage in A Fierce Green Fire shows the Sierra Club's beginnings.

Mark Kitchell's documentary about the American environmental movement, A Fierce Green Fire, which I liked very much, was not actually completed when it screened Saturday at Triangle Square. In an email to supporters, Kitchell writes that "three tasks remain: licensing (and a bit of mastering) archival film and music; recording final narration [with] Robert Redford and four others. . . and a new ending, a call that features present-day activists."

Kitchell reports that $50,000 is needed for rights to film and music in the current cut. He's talking to the likes of Ashley Judd, Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey and Leonardo DeCaprio about narration. His new ending will involve Kenyan Ikal Angelei, who just received the Goldman Prize; China's Dai Qing, who led opposition to the Three Gorges dam; Sarah Hodgdon, conservation director of the Sierra Club; David Braun and Iris Marie Bloom, anti-fracking activists; and Polly Higgins, the British barrister who's leading a campaign to make "ecocide" an international crime.
 
The veteran filmmaker is seeking donations "and a lot of buzz." Visit indiegogo.com/finish-a-fierce-green-fire to find out more. And if you haven't seen it, see A Fierce Green Fire screens again at 5 p.m. Thursday at Triangle Square.
 
"People are loving the film," Kitchell writes. "Distribution is lining up. Important allies are joining us from philanthropic and environmental circles. It's looking like a big success and an important film that can do a lot of good. All we need to do is get it done!"