Editorial

It looks like they’ve got it right this time.

Now in its second year, the Newport Beach Film Festival -- no longer

the Newport Beach International Film Festival -- is by most accounts

quickly on its way to becoming at the very least a city institution.

Two years ago, it didn’t look that way.

In fact, the international version of the event fell into financial

disrepute and bankruptcy and threatened to end any dream of Newport Beach

becoming the next Sundance or Palm Beach in film festival circles.

While the organizers certainly can’t make that claim yet, what they

can claim is that by employing a narrower and more local focus, the

festival is beginning to make waves.

And that’s a good thing both for the festival and Newport Beach, which

recently lost its long-running jazz festival to Irvine.

Some 56 feature films and 100 shorts were seen this year. And festival

organizers believe this year’s totals will surpass last year’s 20,000

attendees.

“I am extremely pleased at all facets of the film festival,” said the

festival’s executive director, Gregg Schwenk. “The responses from the

filmmakers and community have been tremendous.”

All that’s left now is to improve on what has become a good thing.

More local screenings, more publicity and more word of mouth about the

festival within the motion picture industry.

But after everything that we’ve seen this year, we only have one thing

to say:

This show must go on.