Temecula Valley International Film
and Music Festival
Temecula, California
September
9-13, 2009
September 9, 2009 – OPENING NIGHT
Well, here we are again! We just finished attending the opening night
event and had an incredible time. Like
years past, the TVIFF team puts on one heck of an event, we must mention again
the amazing treatment 
we received from Francine
Marseille and the great job she did working the red carpet, although she quoted
herself as “Breaking News, Breaking Bad”, a title from an upcoming feature at
the Fest, she certainly handled herself and the carpet to the best of her
abilities and available resources; KUDDOS Francine. NOW, onto the evening... All the
attendees arrived in classic cars and walked the red carpet lined with Marines
from the Camp Pendleton First Reconnaissance Battalion. Once
everyone finally arrived they were all ushered in to the opening night movie, Love Hurts, while the area
was transformed into the after party. A
new change this year, bar tables and no chairs—a little disappointing when
you’ve been on your feet all day snapping pictures, but it looked elegant. Music entertainment started
with The Bayliens
and they were AWESOME— lots of energy and great talent; a sure fire way to kick
off an after party (take a peek at their performance by CLICKING
HERE). Other wonderful perfomances included Nova and Chris Hayzel
of the Hayzel
Project. The festival had their
beverage station stocked with an assortment of sodas, water, Sierra Nevada beer and wine as well as a
newcomer to the event, Bendistillery
out of Bend, Oregon offering samples of their Crater
Lake Vodka and Bu-Tay
citrus infused blue vodka, that we lovingly nicknamed Smurf Bites. This amazingly
delicious, smooth vodka will sneak up on you and definitely leave you wondering
where you are and what you’re doing there.
CHECK THEM OUT! Available at Bev-Mo and soon to be in every liquor/grocery store around.
NOW, the Food this year was wonderful, as it always is and included:
Daphne’s Greek Kitchen with Lemon Marinated Chicken
Tenders, Daphne’s Pita Bread, Fire Feta, Hummus and Tzatziki
(cucumber yogurt).
Palumbo’s Ristorante with Tomato Basil Pasta and
Chicken Piccata Salad.
Sweet Lumpy’s BBQ with some AMAZING Pulled
Pork.
La Casita Nueva with Chile Verde, Rice and Beans.
Baily’s Fine
Dining with
Mushroom Drops (mushrooms, jalapeno and cream cheese) served with a balsamic
vinegar sauce.
5th
Avenue Dog House with their award winning Tri-Tip and Chili.
Rosa’s
Cafe again
supplied their famous and DELICIOUS Carrot Cake, adorned with the Festival’s
logo.
We met
some great people and are looking forward to catching screenings of their
films, thanks to the creators of Australians Hit Hollywood, Something
Blue, Snow Princess and Shark City for taking time
to talk with us.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
September 10-12, 2009
The rest of the film festival went
fairly smoothly this year. A few got
behind, but nothing dramatic and all-in-all a well done event. The VIP Hospitality Suite created a
wonderful schedule so we knew when things were being served, breakfast, lunch
and happy hour all had times and you certainly better get there when it starts
or you were SOL. We also were able to attend
some of the “after parties” that were sponsored by local businesses. The Thursday night event was hosted by Michel
and Mei Knight of Trevi
Entertainment Centers at their amazing estate in Temecula. A wonderful array of delicious salads and
entrees were served buffet style and a fully stocked cash bar was available.
Linen covered tables adorned the immense patio and outdoor food area, all of
which surrounded a beautifully lit pool while live jazz played throughout the
evening. We had a wonderful time meandering
around the sprawling estate while enjoying our cocktails. Friday’s affair was held in Old Town at The Edge. While Thursday was elegant and calm, this
would be the opposite. The Edge was
still open to the public, so being a Friday night, it was fairly packed
already. We were ushered to the back
where a live band was playing; no seating was available in or out in the patio,
so we stood for about 5 minutes before a festival worker came around and
slapped clown colored paper wristbands on everyone, letting us know that these
were for the free appetizers. Not soon
after the first tray came around: a stale cristini,
topped with cream cheese, a walnut and half a grape. After consuming the not-too delectable
appetizer, and with nowhere to sit, we chose to walk down to The Bank and grab
a margarita and some great Mexican food.
NOW, onto Saturday... we were able to
attend a few screenings, an array of animated shorts, which included Chicory
‘n’ Coffee, a slovenian bitter-sweet tale of
love, marriage and a little lie; Reach, a tiny robot’s tale of life,
awareness and death, El Sabor
del Peligro and more. We watched The
Six Degrees of Helter Skelter, another look
at the Tate/LaBianca murders from the 60’s and how
fate played such a huge roll in the deaths.
Scott Michaels of FindADeath.com takes us on a journey,
along with crime scene photos, autopsy reports and footage of the actual
locations, this documentary gives another insightful look at the famous Charles
Manson Family and the horrendous acts they committed. Australians Hit Hollywood,
directed and written by Kaylee St.Clair,
is an eye opening look at the rise and sustainability of Australians in Hollywood.
Including interviews with Alex O’Loughlin,
Stuart Townsend, Ross Berryman, Jack Thompson, Kevin Sorbo,
Dominic Purcell and many, many others, this film is light, comical and
insightful. The evening ended in the Hospitality Suite with pizza by Scarcella’s, Sierra Nevada beer, an assortment of wine and again our
favorite, Bu-Tay and Crater Lake Vodka’s. Fantastic pizza and company, we met the
director of Baby Blue and had a great chat about her road to film-making; only
24 years old, she created her entire documentary on her own. We got a screener and are looking forward to
seeing it and sending it off for review (look for it in the next few weeks on
our website).
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
September 13, 2009
Sunday is finally here and the big
event, The Black Tie Gala is upon us and the finale to our week as well. We arrived at 4:00pm for media check-in and of course
were properly greeted by Francine. We
got our red carpet spot and the press was assigned a table in the
ballroom. We got set up in the ballroom
and took a few shots of the set-up, at one point, Adam Gaynor
approached us and introduced himself and nervously asked how to pronounce Pechanga correctly; he then whisked himself away just as
quickly; definitely a bit ‘high energy’.
Mr. Gaynor as well as Alex Meneses
were the evenings’ hosts and did a wonderful job. Francine came in and quickly rushed us back
outside to cover the arrival of Earth, Wind and Fire (the premier honorees) and
we got pics of them as well as James Moseley, “The Bone
Man”, before resuming our place at the press table and enjoying a
wonderful three course meal, which consisted of: Field greens with endive, tear
drop tomatoes, and champagne vinaigrette, A duet of sirloin steaks with brandy
and green peppercorns and a medallion of salmon with truffle scented beurre blanc, gratin potatoes, herb roasted baby carrots
and asparagus and a wonderful dessert of vanilla bean panacotta
with yuzu glaze and chocolate shaped film cameras.
The gala
is always an interesting finish to the festival and we were ready for the
whirlwind to end. Thanks again to
Francine for the fantastic job she did and we look forward to working with her
in the future.
The final audience choice awards
went to:
Winning
feature film: $5 A DAY
Director
Nigel Cole - Producers: Jane Goldenring,Carol
Baum, Kia Jam
Winning
documentary: The Making of the
Nutcracker
Director: Inda Reid - Producers: Beverly Stephenson,
Annette Rosen
Winning Short Film: The Bake shop Ghost
Writer/Director: Lorette Bayle
Winning
Animation: Chicory ‘N’ Coffee
Animator: Dusan Kastelic
Winning Music
Video: You Got It
Song by: Lucas Grabeel - Director: Kelly King -
Producer: Brent Geisler
Winning
Student Film: The Last Page
Writer/Producer/Director: Kevin Acevedo
Winning
Foreign Film: CARS of the Revolution
Producer/Director: Tolga Ornek
Best of MusicFest: SoulJourners
