Lucky Becomes A Star At Historical Film Festival

Local filmmaker to show three shorts at Campbell Theatre
Event might be first annual film festival in Martinez.

By Greta Mart

Staff Reporter
January 14, 2010



Move over, Telluride and Sundance. This coming Saturday at the Campbell Theater, the Martinez Inaugural Film Festival commences with two world-premiers and a six-minute science fiction short.

Martinez filmmaker Steffan Schultz led the effort to bring a festival celebrating the cinematographic arts to the area. He met with Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Cynthia Murdough earlier in the month to pitch his vision of an annual multi-day event, and the two agreed to collaborate on this weekend’s trial run.

“I love the idea of an ongoing Martinez Film Festival, and this is a great chance to test the waters,” said Murdough.

“There are no film festivals in the East Bay besides Oakland and Livermore, and I just though we need something like this in Martinez,” Schultz said this week. “The biggest issue [with instituting film festivals] is the venue and infrastructure, and when the Campbell Theater was offered, it was perfect.”

Starting at 5 p.m., Saturday’s festival features three films made by Schultz, Rebirth of a Legend, Lorelei and Tracker.

“Taking place from 1950 to 1954, La Carrera Panamericana is considered by contemporaries as the most dangerous car race in history, and my documentary chronicles California’s best racing team leading up to and competing in the modern day incarnation,” said Schultz, describing a 2000-mile, 7-day journey to Central Mexico. He added that the cast and crew of the documentary will be on hand to answer questions, and the racing car featured in the film, a 1965 Shelby GT350 Mustang entitled “Lucky,” will be parked outside.

Lorelei is loosely based on a poem written by German write Heinrich Heine, and Tracker envisions a Earth ravaged by global warming and ‘uncontrolled corporate pollutants.’

Tickets for the festival cost $7; due to limited seating, tickets at the door are not guaranteed and prospective attendees are encouraged to call the Chamber at 228-2345 to reserve seats.

Gazette readers were introduced to Schultz last April when he screened his documentary entitled Hovsgol Nuur: Diving in the land of Chingis Kahn, a 48-minute film that followed a team of international scientists as they explored the environmental significance of two giant lakes on the Mongolian/Siberian border - 85-mile-long Lake Hovsgol, which provides 70 percent of Mongolia’s fresh water, and Russia’s Lake Baikal, the deepest and oldest lake in the world.

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