Arturo Hilario
El Observador
At Cinequest there is room for AI short films and discussions of the good and bad of the tech, a projection screening of a 100-year-old horror masterwork with a live Wurlitzer organ accompaniment, and deep conversations with X-Files icon Gillian Anderson. This amongst the hundreds of screenings of independent cinema that has always been the nucleus of the San Jose original.
The 34th annual Cinequest continues the traditions started on day one in the 1990s, an experience that engages with the latest technological achievements in film and mixes that with the artistry and creativity of independent cinema.
This year the festival runs from March 11-23, 2025 in downtown San Jose, bringing together artists and audiences from around the world to experience the unique blend of Silicon Valley meets film festival. With 110 US and world premieres, special events like a screening of 1922’s Nosferatu, a Maverick Spirit Award conversation with actress Gillian Anderson, and opportunities for audiences and creators to interact, there is much opportunity to get into the world of film.
For Cinequest CEO and co-founder Halfdan Hussey, who has been there from the start, the excitement and innovative approach is still there 34 editions later.
“This is the 34th year, believe it or not. The 34th edition of the in-person and the sixth edition of the virtual. So you add that up, it’s 40 film festivals. It’s pretty amazing. The evolution, some things there have really stayed the same and have been very core for us from the beginning. We still see them now.”
The core beliefs of the festival, known as the five Cinequest tenets, evolved over the years but center around 1) Discovery, 2) Community of Artist, Innovators, and Audience Connecting, 3) Tech Meets Creativity, 4) The Maverick Spirit, and 5) Love expressed through Caring. This has been the guiding beacon for the festival for a while now.
“It’s such a focus of ours to make sure that we don’t just showcase the already famous, and we do plenty of that, too. But 90% of what we do is discovering art that is world or US premiere that has come through our open submissions. And that’s really unheard of amongst top 8 film festivals in the world. So I’m really proud of that.”
LUMINATE
This year’s theme is centered around ‘Luminate’, or the state of illumination. Hussey describes the term as a way to focus on how film creation has always been through illumination and every changing technologies, and Cinequest sees itself as a beacon of artistry, technology and creativity.
“Our theme is ‘Luminate’ this year because film is technologically driven. Speaking of AI, we don’t have film without technology. It’s technologically-based film. It used to be sprockets, black and white without sound, then it became black and white with sound, then it became color. Thirty-five millimeter went to 70 millimeter, went to 135, and went to all digital.”
“So technology has been part of that. But the part about it that I like the most is the light source. It is a physical light source that makes it possible. It is a light inherent medium. And if we think of light as something that as people and human beings, whatever your beliefs are in the spiritual consciousness or your not beliefs, the lighting and the illumination of our minds and our hearts and spirits through art, through tools and technologies, and mostly, I think, through people and community is really important. So I find that theme to be one that really resonates for what we do.”
Artificial Intelligence & Its Role in Film
The tenet of ‘tech meets creativity’ has been an ever changing but ongoing part of the festival, and that is what makes it one of the most unique in the world.
Hussey recalls that Cinequest has always been on the forefront of emerging technologies, some have come and gone, others are still in use in cinema today.
“The technology discovery that we started about year eight, when we really started to see the digital revolutions in film and media arts. And that has also been a big part of what we do from digital revolution in every aspect of filmmaking, mobile cinema, IP delivery and distribution. We did the first film festival online in 2005. And then we did a lot with AR and VR, but then recently it’s been AI.”
The artificial intelligence boom in the past few years has seen a wild west type of environment, with AI popping up in video games, apps on our phones and even films now. The ways in which the technology is used has been a cause of controversy as well, with a lot of discussion happening in the world of art, whether it be with image generation or its use in restoration of old media or assisting in new films.
“So that’s a big deal for us right now that we look at AI for what it brings in a positive aspect as a tool and a power, and then also take a look to at the things that you’ve got to be careful with.”
This year’s opening night is centered around The Luckiest Man in America, a drama-thriller starring Paul Walter Hauser, Walton Goggins, David Strathairn and Maisie Williams.
But before the film screening there will be a showing of the winning shorts from MIT AI for Filmmaking Hackathon 2025. The contest gives any participant who is chosen to learn about new technologies and create their own film in a 48-hour period. The screening will also include a discussion with the creators of the winning shorts to start off the AI conversations at the festival.
“Last year, we did a big thought leadership day around AI. But the best way to do anything with technology and some creativity is to showcase an experience and not just talk about the technology. An experience is, in this case, to actually see some short movies that were made with AI, in AI, either fully generated through AI or radically enhanced through AI.”
“Because this is really where creativity and engineering are really coming together. And we’ve always said at Cinequest, there isn’t that much difference between a technologist and a filmmaker is just a different language. One is using math and one is in zeros, and one is using film and words to express and to create and so that’s really cool for us to see this blending of engineering and creative minds making these films.”
Although Hussey does not think the tech will ever replace human beings and creativity, he does revel in how it can be used as a tool in the arts.
“That’s the tool. What does the tool bring? What is its limitations? And then who’s using it? It’s the human being that’s using the tool that’s going to be the difference maker in what is generated. I’m really excited about doing this. We’ve done a lot of tech things on opening night with innovators, but this one is really cool to show such a cutting-edge tech meets film exhibition, and then have the makers right there to talk to them afterwards.”
A Bay Area Festival With Bay Area Stories
As much as Cinequest has been a leader in bringing together people and films from across the globe, its roots are here in San Jose and the Bay Area.
Nearly every year there are submissions from this region or by creators from this region, and this year has many examples of great films and filmmakers sharing their slice of Bay Area life, from non-fiction stories to historical documentaries on important figures like social justice luminaries like César Chávez and Fred Ross to the Italian-American banker who founded Bank of America.
American Agitators is the story of Fred Ross, Sr. who pioneered groundbreaking tactics to community organizing and worked with Dust Bowl refugees, Japanese-Americans after their release from internment camps after WWII, and notably for San Jose, collaborated with César Chávez and Dolores Huerta to create the United Farm Workers Union.
“César Chávez. I don’t think we can find anybody who has been more influential in the San Jose’s history, the California history. Dolores Huerta is certainly a powerhouse as well. Then Fred Ross and his sons, who were very, very helpful in people learning how to organize, like Ghandi, right? I mean, to organize your activism in a way that has a positive impact.”
Dana Nachman and Don Hardy have been a local duo who between them have had various films submitted at Cinequest, including Batkid Begins, the heartwarming story of how the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the city of San Francisco turned the city into Gotham for a day for a little boy battling leukemia.
Bar is Don Hardy’s most recent Cinequest submission, a thrilling story of five people who participated in one of the world’s best educational programs on distilled spirits and mixology.
“It’s like going to the top school for bartending. It’s about these gifted bartenders and what they go through. And then it’s a highly entertaining movie about that walk of life and choosing mixology as your path. Like with all great true stories, it’s a combination. It’s the filmmaker being exceptional at telling those stories without just doing interviews and then are the characters themselves in the stories, they’re interesting. So, both of those are shining in this movie.”
Silver Screen Vampire
Among the technology and independent films of the festival, there lies one event that really showcases the advancements of technology because the film being shown was an advancement in technology and art 103 years ago.
The masterpiece that is Nosferatu (1922) will be playing on a rare 35 millimeter print of the film that is being borrowed from the Harvard Film Archive. Not only will it be showcasing this method of film projection which has unfortunately disappeared from most major theaters, but it will be accompanied by a live score from Dennis James playing a restored Wurlitzer organ at the restored California Theater.
“So it’s having that total throwback experience to arguably the film that has been most influential in thriller and horror films of all time. A super creepy, hypnotic, visually stunning movie and then having that soundtrack in that old theater that’s been restored. So it’s a complete throwback experience. But yet people will not feel like it’s an old experience. They’ll feel like everything in that artistry could not be any more contemporary. I mean, it’s not something that dates. They’re going to watch something on 35 millimeter in black and white, and they’re going to think, ‘Wow, I wish a few more artists today could communicate to us like they could.’”
In the past couple of years audiences have been enamored by IMAX technology and their 70 millimeter screenings of Oppenheimer, Dune, and most recently the Oscar winning drama The Brutalist.
“Here I’m talking about all of our technological evolutions or revolutions, but then there has been this interest in going back. The first film I made was on film. It was made on film. I made two films on film, and I’ve gone through that whole workflow of cutting it on film and the whole thing. So I’m surprised at how fascinated people are about that experience. But they are.”
Gillian Anderson, 2025 Maverick Spirit Award Winner
Every year Cinequest gives out an award for those who they believe are the best example of blending innovation with the world of art.
“That’s a Maverick, somebody that’s not going to follow the norm and do the same thing that’s willing to be original and take risks, do something interesting,” says Hussey.
For this year’s award screening and conversation, they will have Gillian Anderson and her film, The Salt Path, showing at the California Theater on Saturday March 22. Anderson is best known as agent Dana Scully in The X-Files show, and other television series such as The Crown, Sex Education, The Fall, and Bleak House.
A moderated conversation with her will happen afterwards, and Hussey says it is a can’t miss opportunity.
“We don’t do light conversations. We’re not going to ask somebody on the red carpet, ‘Well, where did you get your gown? Where’s the necklace from? Or who are you dating today?’ But we’re going to find out, ‘How do you do this work? What is your passion for it? Who are you? What do you love in life besides making movies?’ So you get into them in a way that is very non-gossipy, but very deep. And it’s always super fun and also very super inspiring.”
Cinequest runs from March 11-23, 2025 in San Jose, CA. Tickets and more information at www.cinequest.org.
