thekings Two years before they hope to roll out the red carpet, the Long Beach Cinematheque and the Long Beach Film Foundation have announced their collaboration on what just may be the first-ever Long Beach Film Festival, which would unquestionably fill one of the most-unseemly holes in the city’s arts-and-culture menu.

The people behind the partnering organizations are familiar within in the local film scene.

Long Beach Cinematheque is the burgeoning force begun by Logan Crow—an occasional contributor to GreaterLongBeach.com—who has produced or contributed to events like Mondo Celluloid, Watch This Book and Movies on the Beach. This month Crow goes for a drive-in experience by showing Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on the side of the old Press-Telegram building. Next month he brings his brainchild, the Zombie Walk, to the streets of downtown. Crow will be the new film festival’s executive director.

Long Beach Film Foundation is the creation of filmmakers Shawn and Roberta King, who own the rights to the Long Beach Film Festival brand and have long hoped for such an event. Shawn King will be the new festival’s event producer and Roberta King will be its program director and membership director.

A film festival in Long Beach is historically apropos.

The city was home to one of the first movie studios in California—the legendary Balboa Studios—during the silent-film era. Even as Hollywood assumed dominance in the industry, Long Beach played on its varied architecture, eclectic neighborhoods and year-round filming weather to stand in for cities around the world. In recent years, Long Beach has become a popular location for television and commercial filming—shows such as Dexter, True Blood and CSI: Miami are often shot here.

Organizers intend the festival to showcase feature lengths, shorts, documentaries and student films from both local and non-local filmmakers. They want to revive the city’s rich history of movie culture and provide an understanding of the values of film as a communication medium.

Obviously, the festival is in its earliest stages, but potential sponsors and volunteers are encouraged to go to the event website, http://longbeachfilmfestival.org.