2024 Festival Selections

2023 Festival Selections

Special Recognition: Trailblazing Chicano Actor Pepe Serna on his career spanning 50+ years. Ligiah Villalobos, screenwriter of Under the Same Moon offered a workshop to our Cine Se Puede fellows. We also presented and Art Exhibit at Pajaro Valley Arts, featuring local artist Juan Fuentes, subject of the shirt film Strawberry Picker.

The second weekend of WFF was cancelled to to extreme local flooding, and we reschedules some of the films from that weekend during the year.

2022 Festival Selections

FEATURE FILMS

SHORT FILMS

Special Recognition, Trailblazer Chingona: Josefina Lopez, playwright and screenwriter of Real Women Have Curves on the film’s 20th Anniversary.

2021 Festival Selections

Our first all-virtual film festival was a smashing success! We worked with the Eventive platform to present 20+ powerful films and shorts - all for free - as a gift to our community after a tough year. Due to systemic inequalities and the number of essential & heroic agricultural workers living and working here, Watsonville suffered the highest Covid-19 infection rates and deaths in Santa Cruz County. This was our gift to our amazing community, and the world.

2020 Festival Selections

Our 2020 Festival, scheduled for March 12-15, was cancelled due to Covid. However, we quickly pivoted, and by April 2020 we began our Virtual WFF online series. Though Virtual WFF, we screened most of our 2020 selections and hosted filmmaker Q&A’s throughout the year. The accompanying art exhibit “Campesinos: Workers of the Land,” which WFF co-sponsored with Pájaro Valley Arts, also premiered online. You can view it here.

Feature Films

Short Films

Música para después de dormir – Nicholás Rojas Sánchez / The Lost – Vincent Cortez / Remover el corazón / To Stir The Heart – Melissa Elizondo / Xilonen – Digital NEST Short Film Intensive / No Place to Grow – Michelle Aguilar / Time and the Seashell - Itandehui Jansen (postponed until 2021 WFF) / Through Your Eyes – Eugenia Rentería  / Represent – Armando Aparicio / Best of Me – Maureen Gosling, Craig Sherod, Los Cenzontles / Bakosó – Eli Jacobs Fantauzzi / Last Online – Hector Villareal / Sharing Stories: Vinent Cortez - Eugenia Rentería / Oda a los frijoles – Karolina Esqueda / Burger Buddies – Avery Christmas / Your Welcome - Naftali Beane Rutter

Plus free community Film Talks: “Docs from the Heart” with Melissa Elizondo, and “Capture, Create & Inspire” with Eugenia Rentería.

2019 Festival Selections

Feature Films

Short Films

Service With A Smile – Andrés Mercado + Digital NEST Team (World Premiere) / Futbolistas 4 Life – Jun Stinson / Towards the Sun – Monica Santis / Crisanto Street – Paloma Martínez / To Infinity – Gabriel Savodivker / Con o Sin Papeles - Aria Zapata / Sunflower Soup – Melissa A. Martinez / Sharing Stories: Jessica Sierra – Eugenia Rentería / Sharing Stories: Dr. Ernesto Vela – Eugenia Rentería / Mia’s Wish – María Cano / Rosario – Marlén Ríos-Farjat / Forty-Seven – Sarah Mondragón / #ttyl – Allyson Wegner / Maestra Roxana – Soquel High Mulitcultural Club /  Stupidly Happy – Johnny Rome / Generation Z – Rosie Ceja

2017 Festival Selections

Feature Films

Short Films

No pases por San Bernardino (Don't Pass Though San Bernardino) – Hugo Magaña (U.S. premiere) / 37° North & Between Seasons – Puck Lo / A Father's Day – Mat Johns / Campito Kids – Anthony Loera-Brust / Carnitas – Tony Vaca / Closure – Ayana Hawk-Harris / Dance With Your Heart – Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi  / Deep in the Woods – Soyeon Kim / Dejando Huella & Permiso – Edgar Ontiveros & Jorge Flores / Every G.I. is a P.O.W. – Jaeson Amarillas / Grandma's Card Night – Rose Mercurio / Honey, I'm Home - Annie Taylor / I Was Born in Mexico, But... – Corey Ohama / Jenny Loves Satan – Jenna Bryant / Karen – Vanessa Cano / Kevin's Quest – Joseph Cloud / La Rabia de Clara (Clara's Rage) – Michelle Garza Cervera / Piaf – Adan Miguel / Santa Cruz ICE Raid: Lessons & Aftermath – Brenda Avila-Hanna & Kati Greaney / Soul-Mate – Jonathan Rome / Sugar – Jennifer Castaneda / The Battle for Matheney Tract – Samuel Contreras / The Cleansing Hour – Damien LeVeck / The Creature – Jane Tobias / Trespassers (Inkräktare) – Johannes Persson

Inspirational Filmmaker Award – Tadashi Nakamura / Filmmaker in Education Award – Luis Cámara

2016 Festival Selections

Feature Films

Short Films

Lurker — Gabriel Medina (World Premiere) /  Libertad — Brenda Avila-Hanna / Midnight Warrior — Alex Santana Jr. / 
Four Postcards to Marta — Hernán Talavera (U.S. premiere) /  Emerald Ice — Jesseca Ynez Simmons / Finding Blas — Marisol Medina-Cadena /
They Will All Die In Space — Javier Chillón / La ropavejera (The Huckster) — Nacho Ruipérez / Ahco On The Road, Hansel + Gretel,  Noir — Soyeon Kim  / El Cacao — Michelle Aguilar / Mama Agatha — Fadi Hindash / The Call — Brianna Beavers / Fish Eye — Tong Zhou / 
Carla — Jacqueline Aquino / Baggage — Jessica Scrimshaw / As Seen On TV — Gabriel Norwood / The Maw — Jess Moss / 
Periods Suck & Where Are You?  — Jonathan Rome / El espejo humano (The Human Mirror) — Marc Nadal  /
Apis Mellifera — Cristian Duran & Joey Cloud  / Right Side of the Tracks — Richard Medina III / What Could Be — Spencer Merritt

Inspirational Filmmaker Award - Soyeon Kim / Local Pioneer Filmmakers Award - Geoffrey Dunn, George Ow, Jr., Cori Houston, Mark Schwartz

2015 Festival Selections

Feature Films

Short films

Edgar and the Joyous Life – Veronica López / Eduardo Carrillo: A Life of Engagement – Pedro Pablo Celedón / Eloy Take Two – Roberto S Orejel / Guajiros – Kati Greaney / Hijos del Sol – KQED Spark / Legacy of Resilience & Keiro Thursdays – Marissa Kitazawa / My Sunshine, My World – Marisol Medina-­Cadena / The Unique Ladies –  Gloria Morán /  Youth Short Film Program & Award

CA State Assembly Recognition for Body of Documentary Work - Ray Telles

2014 Festival Selections

Feature Films

Short Films

Luna  – Antonio Perez / Growing People – Dana Forsberg / Lonche – Claire Weissbluth / Vida Diferida (Life Deferred) – Brenda Avila-­Hanna / The Big Deal – Lucy Rodríguez / The Poem Home – ­ Tara Evonne Trudell / Telling the Blues in Santa Cruz – Eric Arvizu / Día de los Muertos – Dave de Give / Una Mañana (In the Morning) – América Valdés /  / Tradiciones Veracruzanas – Gabriel Johns Robledo  / Youth Short Films Program & Award

Honoring Women Filmmakers - Carmen Marrón, Luciana Kaplan, Consuelo Alba

2013 Festival Selections

Feature Films

Short films

Common Ground – Consuelo Alba & John Speyer / Maestra – Catherine Murphy / Don't Cost Nothin' To Dream – Kathy Bisbee & Emery Hudson / Cain's Arcade - Nirvan Mullick / Gordo – Vince Navarro / Rushing Waters, Rising Dreams – John Cantú / El Mar Picando en Sus Espaldas (The Sea Scratching at Their Backs) – Claire Weissbluth / L’equip petit – Roger Gómez & Dani Resines / La Charreada! Rodeo a la Mexicana – Olga Nájera-Ramírez / 
The Virtues of Corned Beef Hash – Kerwin Berk / Lluvia Fría (Cold Rain) – Ana Simoes & Alex Perdomo / Márgenes íntimas (Intimate Margins) – Mónica Enríquez-Enríquez / Primera – Marcos Aguirre / Escrito – Mónica Enríquez-Enríquez /  Follow Your Heart – Prem Devi Pride / Soul In – Noé Lomelí / 
Stuck in the Mud: The Pájaro River in Peril – Lois Robin / Bi-National Dreams, Mixtecos – Yolanda Cruz / The Audio Gadgeteer – Claire Weissbluth / 
The Project: Six Watsonville Digital Stories – Ron Glass / Unnatural Causes: Becoming American – Patricia García Ríos & Maria Teresa Rodríguez /
Best of the Fest: Chicago Childrens Int’l Film Festival Shorts – Various Directors
Youth Short Films Program (12 films) & Award

Local Pioneer Filmmaker Award - Luis Valdez

2012 Festival Selections

all-shorts Program

A Piece of Cake – Katie Roper / Double Edge – Nikolas Rector / Japanese American Citizens League Short Films – Heather Geddes and Watonka Addison / The Project: Short Digital Films – Ron Glass / Jacob Martinez: NEXTie 2012 – Cosmic Design / Salió El Sol – Sheila Lopez / Racism: A Short Inquisitive Film – Watsonville TEC Students

"On The Same Page" Award Recognition - Consuelo Alba & John Speyer / Local Pioneer Filmmaker Award - Jon Silver