Lower budget than low-budget

The El Camino College's Marsee Auditorium will be taking "indie" to the next level by hosting South Bay's second annual "anti-festival" on Nov. 1.

Created by Sameer and Ricky Bhavnani, two brothers whose film was previously rejected byseveral local film festivals, the student-friendly film fest is the voice of the common filmmaker. Film submissions are free of charge and a $1,000 prize will be given to the most voted film or to the filmmaker who brings the most viewers.

The goal is to give all submitted films a chance of screen time. Films not screened in its entirety will be promoted via ten-second clips and a link to the whole film online. Though the festival's target audience is college and high school students, this one-day event is open to all.

Pre-sale tickets are available at the El Camino box office for $6 and $10 at the door. Tickets

may also be purchased online or over the phone. For more information, visit the official website.

Film submissions are still being accepted. However, a $5 late submission fee will be charged.

2nd Annual South Bay Film Festival FINALIST TRAILER from Hey Homie Productions on Vimeo.

photos courtesy of South Bay Films

Flower art!

In a corner niche of CSULB lies the Japanese Garden, home of a large koi fish community and the destination of many candle-lit wedding receptions. Despite the lack of visitations by students on-campus, it is still frequented by locals and tourists alike who enjoy a tea tasting ceremony or origami show.

One of the garden's annual fall events include its Chrysanthemum Show. The garden will open its doors this weekend to allow visitors the opportunity to view not only award-winning chrysanthemum flowers juried by the Chrysanthemum Society of Orange County, but also a plethora of artistic arrangements ranging from a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Potted and cut blooms will also be available for purchase.


For more information, visit the garden's website or call 562/985-8885. Admission to the event is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors and $5 for Japanese Garden members. Children 12 and under will be admitted free of charge.

photo courtesy of the Japanese Garden's official website.

Famous people visit "the Beach," too

photo courtesy to Glenn Brown

For CSULB students who often complain about the lack of visiting celebrities to the campus, "My Lai 4" author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh will be part of the Distinguished Speakers Series at the Carpenter Center tomorrow afternoon.

Seymour Hersh is a legend in the journalistic world--a leading investigative reporter in the field. Known for his modern-day muckraking stories, Hersh has a covered controversial government scandals from Watergate to CIA domestic spying to the torture of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison.

The story that garnered Hersh worldwide recognition and the Pulitzer Prize, however, was his exposé on the massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians at point-blank by U.S. soldiers (My Lai Massacre). The story not only amassed widespread outrage and opposition to the Vietnam War, but also exposed the U.S. government's attempt to hide the story from the media for nearly a year.

Slaughtered woman, children, infants and elderly.
photo by Ronald L. Haeberle

Tickets for tomorrow's lecture are still available and may be purchased at the Carpenter Center box office or online.

Bringing Hollywood to Long Beach

photo courtesy of Chay Chhuon for the Daily49er

LB Studios are negotiating to transform the former Boeing 717 production hangar across from Long Beach airport into "Hollywood-style" movie studios, the Daily Forty-Niner reported. The 77-acre plot of land will be the foundation for 40 soundstages, one of which will be donated to the CSULB film department.

With the space constraints on campus, a room in the Fine Arts 1 building is currently multi-tasking as a classroom and soundstage. While smaller productions may be produced, anything with a larger scope is limited.

This soundstage donation will give CSULB students the opportunity to play on a more level playing field with USC and Chapman University students, who already have access to larger soundstages. In addition, it will also provide jobs and local internships for students who, up until now, have had to drive to Los Angeles.

Phase one of the studios' construction could be done as early as 2010.