Film Festival Hopes to Spotlight the Valley

A memo to those in area code 310: The San Fernando Valley’s first film festival opens today with high hopes of enhancing 818’s cultural cachet.

“We’re not just about porn, Valley girls and the Sherman Oaks Galleria,” said Tracey Adlai, the festival founder. “There’s more to the Valley than that.”

Yet the three-day festival will take place at the newly renovated Galleria, the 1980s shrine to the, like, money-dropping, miniskirted teenagers immortalized in the Frank and Moon Unit Zappa song “Valley Girl” and the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

The mall is not exactly a rival to Sundance’s ski resorts or Cannes’ Mediterranean coast. It’s also unclear whether the Valley event will attract much attention in a region that hosts a broad array of other film festivals.

October alone boasts the Hungarian Film Festival of Los Angeles, the Burbank International Children’s Film Festival and the Angelus Awards Student Film Festival in Hollywood.

“There are literally thousands of film festivals,” said Jonathan Wolf, executive vice president of the American Film Marketing Assn., a nonprofit group of independent TV and film companies that is based in Westwood, 310 territory.

“Ninety-nine percent of them have no impact on the industry.”

Adlai remains undaunted. “It would be nice in 10 years to become a Sundance,” said the 31-year-old Valley native and New York University film school graduate, “but for now, I hope the festival helps people in 310 look at the Valley differently.”

The festival’s 24 films will include independent features and shorts about a porn-star convention, suburban anomie, struggling actors and traffic jams--in other words, material that is close to home for many Valley residents. Others touch on universal themes such as life and death and love and hate.

Directors, producers and screenwriters will judge the films (winners receive a plaque). After each screening, viewers will be invited to engage in question-and-answer sessions with the filmmakers.

The new purple 16-screen Pacific Theatres multiplex at the Galleria will also present Valley-based “classics” such as “Encino Man,” “Boogie Nights” and “Valley Girl.”

“The film festival shows that living in 818 is not such a bad thing,” said Adlai, who financed the event with roughly $15,000 out of her pocket. “There is so much creativity here.”

Indeed, the Valley is home to Warner Bros., Walt Disney Co., Universal Studios and NBC and CBS television. Those in the industry “have no excuse for not coming, because it’s right in their backyard,” said Adlai, who has no idea how many will attend. “Maybe someone will get their big break from the festival.”

Proceeds from the tickets--$6 for two shorts and a feature; $2 for the classics--will go to the 818 Foundation, Adlai’s new nonprofit organization promoting Valley film and culture.

“It’s about time the Valley had its own film festival,” said Ted Rae, a 42-year-old Burbank resident, producer and cinematographer. Rae and his wife, Haley McLane, will debut “To Ease the Loss,” a 20-minute short about parents’ uplifting struggle to come to terms with their son’s terminal illness.

“There are so many jokes about the Valley, but this is the place where good movies are made,” Rae said.

The festival was planned for Aug. 18 (as in 8-18), but then Adlai heard about the remodeled Galleria, which is reopening in stages after closing in early 1999 because of flagging sales.

The mall is an 880,000-square-foot, outdoor retail and office center at Ventura and Sepulveda boulevards. Adlai said it is the perfect venue for the festival because it reflects the Valley’s history.

“I’m so sick of the Valley being the butt of all jokes,” she said. “I hope the people in other area codes come and see it for themselves.”