The Newport Beach Film Festival doesn’t just program a film, co-founder and CEO Gregg Shwenk explains. He aims, whenever possible, to give audiences a full experience around each movie, including a great post-screening Q&A, a packed house, and a party afterward with local cuisine and music.
While Los Angeles, just over an hour away, finds itself in an existential crisis over declines in film production, all is sunny at the Newport Beach Film Festival, which is now celebrating its 25th anniversary since its founding by Schwenk and Todd Quartararo.
This year’s edition, which started October 17 and continues through Thursday, features more than 300 films from 50 countries. Overflow crowds turn out for screenings and panels, and to fete awardees from Terry Crews to Nicolas Cage (recipients, respectively, of the Arts Champion and Icon Awards).
Bob Mackie and Carol Burnett draw delighted fans of all ages to listen to them talk about the more than 17,000 costumes spawned by their long collaboration. Ewan McGregor and Peter Sarsgaard are among the many A-list honorees. And the festival still finds room to program extremely indie and avant-garde films.
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Why is the festival — one of our 25 Coolest in the World — succeeding when so many things in the film industry aren’t?
To be sure, the yacht parties, seaside cocktails and shopping of Newport Beach are an easy draw for affluent Angelenos looking for a getaway. And Newport Beach is also home to a sizable bloc of awards-season voters who, Schwenk says, simply don’t want the hassle of trekking to Los Angeles.
But what really makes the difference, he says, is providing a full experience.
We talked with Gregg Schwenk about going big all through the week, an early blessing from Sunset Boulevard director Billy Wilder, and being an essential awards-season stop.
MovieMaker: Congratulations on 25 years. Can you talk about what has changed since your first festival?
Gregg Schwenk: I want to think about some of the things that have been the same, and then some of the things that have evolved. Our strength has always been our location and our proximity. Our location, Newport Beach, is stunningly beautiful. We have natural and man-made amenities that are second to none, and it’s just an incredible location for an international event, especially an international film festival.
And then our proximity to Hollywood allows us to easily work with people both in front of and behind the camera, as well as distributors and sales agents, to come down and take a look at our films, and
hopefully make some decisions on some of the ones that are up for distribution.
So we’ve always been able to leverage all of those things. As far as the opportunities that have come up especially recently, moving to the fall has allowed us to capitalize on a very large contingent of guild and Academy members that we have here in Orange County and South L.A., and it really has begun to change the dynamic of the festival and the opportunities we can bring for films looking to get a jump start on their awards campaigns.
MovieMaker: Different festivals have different things that they know are going to be a hit with the viewers. Have you noticed any patterns in what your audience likes?
Gregg Schwenk: Well, definitely, our voters like good films. And we’ve always played into our action sports. We know we’re the epicenter for the action sports industry. I think we do exceptionally well with international films. The prestige titles do very well with us, and obviously with our guild Academy voters that are here.
I think our audience really appreciates good storytelling. I’m always extremely impressed with the Q&As and the insightful questions that our audience has for our filmmakers and the responses that we get from our audiences.
I’m always watching audience scores, and I’d say at least post-Covid, we’ve seen significantly high audience scores across the board for the vast majority of our films. Wow. So that’s telling me that the people who are going and voting are appreciating what we’re programming.
Gregg Schwenk on the Start of the Newport Beach Film Festival
MovieMaker: What are your memories of your first year? Did this come from humble beginnings, or was it a big hit from the start?
Gregg Schwenk: No, no. Definitely, humble beginnings. Our very first edition had the 50th anniversary of Sunset Boulevard, and we had Billy Wilder send a letter congratulating us on the launch of the festival and saying how proud he was to have his film, 50 years later, be the opening night. And then A.C. Lyles, who was a legendary producer out at Paramount, who knew Wilder rather well, came and represented him and read the letter. It was a very moving moment for us, especially for our first year. And so we’ve always had a very strong connection to both contemporary and classic Hollywood.
MovieMaker: Was there a turning point when the festival really took off?
Gregg Schwenk: It’s been very slow and steady growth. We consistently add events and screens. I think we’re the only festival in the world that hosts two “10 to Watch” events with Variety, as well as two Awards Chatters with Scott Feinberg and The Hollywood Reporter. So we’ve consistently grown different aspects of the festival, adding in both opportunities for artisans and artists overall. We’re really excited about the evolution of the festival and the overall trajectory to what is shaping to be an extremely successful 25th anniversary.
MovieMaker: What do you think you’re doing right at a time when a lot of the a lot of the industry is struggling? Is it the audiences? You have a lot of screenings selling out, which is not the case for many festivals or movies.
Gregg Schwenk: We’ve had a record number of sellouts this year. Our opening night, we had to for the first time bring in a secondary screen. … We’re operating at 12 screens right now, which is huge, and we had to bring a 13th and 14th screen online last night and tonight as well.
MovieMaker: Has anyone given you feedback about why they’re hungry for watching films?
Gregg Schwenk: I think what Newport does very well is we create an experience. We curate that film and find a great moderator. We find a community even beyond Newport Beach and even Orange County that we can connect with, that the film will resonate with. And then we often host great events around that.
Last night, for example, was amazing with our Latin showcase. We had the world premiere of Jenni, which is the biopic on Jenni Rivera. That was a triple sellout last night. And we had our Brazilian Spotlight, which was the North American premiere of Silvio, and that was a sellout.
And then you had the world premiere of a new film called A Typical Pirate, which was a double sellout as well, and so then you had this afterparty with the Mariachi Divas, a Grammy Award-winning female mariachi group. You had some incredible, award-winning DJs and culinary pairings, with some of the top Mexican and Brazilian restaurants in Orange County. So it’s a really great way to infuse the evening with different cultural aspects and culinary tastings.
MovieMaker: Do you release the numbers of Academy voters who attend?
Gregg Schwenk: Screen International did a study looking at Oscar voting and they said, look, you guys have a giant contingent, like the largest outside of L.A. and New York. And we have the Orange County Film Society, which has a very large focus. And then you get all the other members who aren’t part of the film society, but will come in for one-off screenings and other opportunities.
Over the weekend we had a very large contingent of both A.S.C. and A.C.E. members because of the different programs we were putting on. We also have a huge contingent of SAG members that live here in Newport, and a strong contingent of both PGA and DGA members that own homes here in Newport and the surrounding area.
I can just tell you anecdotally that so many people from L.A. have been buying a second home here, during and post-pandemic, but especially during the pandemic. A very large number of executives and other industry types call Newport their second home.
MovieMaker: And that makes it an essential stop for people on Oscar campaigns.
Gregg Schwenk: There’s two things to it, I think. One is, you get a lot of people who say, “Oh, I want to experience what Newport has.” A lot of the other festivals have really been cutting back. The events just aren’t what they used to be. And we definitely have elevated the experience. When you see some of the stuff we do, even on a weeknight, it would really be equivalent to what other festivals are doing for their opening.
The other piece to it is we’ve got this voting block of older Academy and Guild members who just aren’t going to go up to L.A. anymore. They don’t want the hassle. Newport and Orange County, they feel much safer here. We’ve got a bloc that’s very important that no one else has.
MovieMaker: What’s your goal for the future?
Gregg Schwenk: It’s to continue steady and sensible growth, partnering with the right organizations and groups, and, most importantly, continuing to always listen to our audience.