The Coronado Island Film Festival is in its 8th year and is steamrolling ahead.
Founded by actress, writer and architect Doug St. Denis and led by CEO and Artistic Director Merridee Book, this film festival premieres roughly 80 films each year, giving back over $1.5 million to the city throughout the years, according to Book.
This year’s festival is Nov. 8-12.
Around 50 to 60% of the attendees are residents on the island and greater San Diego, while 30 to 40% of their audience come from outside the region, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Arizona and as far away as Nova Scotia, said Book.
Whether they’re from five blocks down the road or 500 miles away, people gather to celebrate the art of film.
Coronado’s long history with film
Coronado has a long history of being a part of the Hollywood industry, dating as far back as 1897, according to the Coronado Historical Association.
In 1915, Siegmund “Pop” Lubin, a pioneer in the film industry, built a studio on Coronado where more than 50 movies were produced.
In 1958, the film “Some Like it Hot” was filmed outside the Hotel del Coronado, featuring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon.
And of course, in 2022, “Top Gun: Maverick” was filmed on North Island.
Visit with The Coronado News
It’s clear to St. Denis and Book that the significance of having a film festival on Coronado is to celebrate the over century-long relationship between the island and the film industry.
St. Denis and Book sat down with The Coronado News to talk about the upcoming festival and Coronado’s rich film history (some of the answers have been edited for length).
THE CORONADO NEWS: So, why a film festival here on Coronado?
MERRIDEE: Well, I think we’re constantly reminding people of the history because this is a very transient city in general. There’s a lot of people who rent, there’s a lot of people who own, but are seasonal. And they don’t know the history and the legacy of not just Hollywood, but actual filmmaking here on the island.
That whole legacy of filmmaking was really one of the inspirations for Doug to start this festival.
DOUG: I mean, truly I mean everybody knows about “Some Like It Hot” filmed in 1958, but the fact is that it started 50 years before that. You know, at the Hotel Del which was new, and film was new. And they loved coming to the Del and they loved our light and the town.
They made movies here and all the movie stars came. And the directors, I mean, Frank Capra and his wife [were here].
Celebrating movies
THE CORONADO NEWS: What’s so important about movies and being able to celebrate them in a festival?
MERRIDEE: That’s the thing, is everyone loves movies. We all have core memories of certain films that have shaped our lives or that we just loved or, you know, whether it’s a first date or like the first R-rated movie, you could go to.
Everyone has a memory of a film.”
-Merridee Book, CEO of Coronado Island Film Festival.
Everyone has a memory of a film.
It really is just a universal art form. And now content creation is huge. It’s on your phone. It’s everywhere. We’re surrounded by it. So, the art of filmmaking is constantly evolving with technology, but it’s also evolving the way that it’s delivered. And obviously the rise of streaming.
And we’ve had to keep up with all of that in order to continuously produce a film festival that is unique but also current. We always have a certain element of our programming that pays respect and homage to the history of filmmaking and the classics.
Background in film industry
CORONADO NEWS: You guys talk so eloquently about film and the art of film, the history of film. What are your guys’ backgrounds with this industry?
DOUG: I feel like all the pathways of my life led to this point for Coronado Island Film Festival. I was an actress and an architect and a writer and a community activist. And it all just comes together. And I love this town. I love it.
MERRIDEE: And my background, lifelong love of film. I went to elementary school in Pasadena for a number of years. And our school was a backdrop for a few of the 1970s series.
And we’d walk to school and be fascinated by these trucks and the lighting and the actors would just be standing there. I’ve worked in front of the camera, behind the camera as a producer, talent, actress.
I own my own company, a start up multimedia company that was sort of a cross-platform company and had that for about eight years and had a small studio in Atlanta where we would film in more of a talk show format.
I loved that film was always a platform for education. And I sat on the board of directors for COSA (Coronado School of the Arts) for four years. And, you know, just seeing what was being produced, but not necessarily as a form of activism, but as a form of education.
Past projects
THE CORONADO NEWS: So just to backtrack a little bit, what are some of the projects that you want to cite that you’ve worked on in the past that either gave you a good experience or were important to you?
MERRIDEE: Many years ago I worked at the Oakland Film Commission and the Bay Area is obviously ripe with film studios. You’ve got Francis Ford Coppola, you’ve got Lucas films, you’ve got Industrial Light & Magic. And so for me, that was actually really fun because I did a lot of scouting for some films.
I did some scouting for the “Matrix.” Then I worked on “Bicentennial Man” and was in that. That was really my first full feature where they built out this massive set. I was also working with Teamsters, so I got a completely different perspective of the industry, of the permitting process, of what it takes to bring films into a city and film and spend money in. your city.
THE CORONADO NEWS: How do you guys find the films to premiere them here and how do you choose that?
MERRIDEE: So I watch every single film.
THE CORONADO NEWS: Don’t you have, like, 80 films?
MERRIDEE: Yeah. So there are three ways we do it. I work with several programmers to cover specific categories. So, there’s shorts and then there’s documentaries or narratives. And so they’re out there basically finding films and deciding, ‘Hey, take a look at this. This one was great.’
We have about 40 screeners that will go through and screen these films. They kicked off in February this year. So the second our submissions open, our screeners start to get assigned films and they choose what category they would like to screen.
Their scores help determine the cut off for selection. As the artistic director, I have the final say as to what films make it into the festival.
And we’re apolitical. Certain films we do pass on if they get too polarizing.
But you know, we’ve had very difficult topics and we’ve had very difficult subjects and we’re not afraid of that. Last year, we had incredible films on LGBTQ, I mean, it just depends on: the film has to be done well, it has to be written well, it has to have a message. There has to be a reason for it.
DOUG: We like ones that start conversations, maybe change your mind about something. Make you mad, you know.
MERRIDEE: And if there can be a civil conversation, where there’s a middle ground.
If it’s cultural, I mean, we definitely try to pull in representation across everything from race, gender. We do our salute to veterans, military is a huge fabric of this community. All of that goes into our program.
