The Power of Ideas
The Newport Beach Film Festival
The Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF) is a non-profit organization on a 20+ year mission to bring the best in international and independent film to Orange County.
Celebrated as a leading lifestyle film festival in the United States, NBFF attracts film entrants from 56 countries around the world. Nearly 60,000 film and food fans to view over 100 feature films, 30 short film programs, and dozens of public and private events featuring more than 60 culinary partners serving up their finest.
NBFF Celebrates the Power of Ideas
In this pro bono festival trailer - featured on ADWEEK - we see two divorcees completely lost in their own pattern of conflict and as a result their young son retreats into his imagination with his toys as props.
A jarring series of events quickly unfolds in the outside world -- all seemingly triggered (albeit unknowingly) by the boy's imagination.
Per director, Johan Stahl: “By grounding the story in an easily relatable reality -- a classic divorce scenario with familiar tropes and gender roles -- it sets the viewer up to quickly see the disparity between the parents’ world and the boy's world, and ultimately, express central themes around imagination, cinematic storytelling, and the theme of this year's Newport Beach Film Festival: ‘The Power of Ideas.’”
“Quota”
The first in the pro bono series we did for the NBFF is a beautiful and brutal short film “Quota: Who Made the Cut” centers on two beaten-down miners in space suits dangling by ropes from a massive, alien edifice, mining for crystals. Staying on the planet promises a bleak future, and they’re in competition with one another to find a mother lode of the precious substance and earn their way back home.
