Oceanside Film Festival Has World Premiere Of Music Documentary

Speaker 1: 00:00 Since 2009, the ocean side international film festival has been bringing unique screening experiences to North county this year. The festival has added a special preview event on Sunday in order to hold the world premier of the local music documentary. Mrs. Henry presents the last waltz KPBS arts reporter Beth Armando speaks with festival managing director Lou Niles and musician filmmaker Daniel Cervantes. Speaker 2: 00:26 Lou, you are returning as managing director for the Oceanside film festival and normally this takes place over kind of an extended weekend, but this year you've added an extra day, kind of a preview event. What is this all about? Speaker 3: 00:39 Yes, as we do when we're going through the films, uh, and deciding which films are going to be selected. Uh, we came across this wonderful documentary and it just happened to be an event that I had actually attended. Uh, we're super excited to tell Dan that, uh, they were going to be in the festival only to find out that he wasn't going to be able to be there and be on tour. And this is just impossible that he can't be at the rural premiere. Being so involved with the film, uh, that we were lucky enough to work out this added day, August 4th on Sunday. Kind of the kickoff kickoff to the, uh, to the event. Speaker 2: 01:16 So this documentary is Mrs. Henry presents the last waltz. What was it about it that made you feel it was so important to include in the festival this year? Speaker 3: 01:24 Well, it was done really well, and I'm a little biased because I'm a longtime supporter over 30 years of the, of the San Diego music scene. And I was at the event a, but to me it would, it embodied just a part of the amazement of being there and, and what amazing performance, all the songs were at the belly up, uh, was the feat of gathering all those people together. It represents the community coming together and doing something incredible. Kind of an historic event, uh, in San Diego. Speaker 2: 01:55 And Daniel, you are in this film was one of the band members and you also co-directed it. So first of all, explain to people, what was this concert? Mrs. Henry presents the last waltz? What was that about? Speaker 4: 02:08 Okay, well this concert was a, a, not necessarily attribute, if you will, but a, I guess you could call it a channeling or reenactment of the 1976, uh, concert, the last waltz by the band, the band, the band, and our band, Mrs. Henry was asked to put this concert on and the original concert, um, the band featured all their friends, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, they, they had some pretty heavy friends, you know, and so we, we had, we were lucky to be asked this. And you know, we, we've grown a lot of friends in this community as we've, uh, grown up as a band and we were able to invite our friends Pat Beers from the skits, phonics. Our friend Brendan Deller from Sacrum, Mani, Nina Anderson was there, who, who does a, you know, the June Carter in a cashed out. And so the event in itself, the original concert was, was a celebration of this music and this community. Speaker 4: 03:06 And that's what it was for us too. You know, we got to bring all of our friends under one roof for a night and got to put together 30 plus guests on the stage. I think a, they said at the belly of, it was most people on the stage at one time and a dog. I brought my, my dog, Elvis was on the stage at one point and um, let's see. Yeah this, this night it was a celebration of just music in the San Diego community. And so it was just a beautiful night celebration that we felt we had to capture and document. Like we've done many nights and this one just came out really well. We call it like a white whale. We just caught a good one night where everyone came and played their hearts out. So, Speaker 2: 03:46 and what made you decide that you wanted to create this and also create a documentary? Cause you had to go into the concert knowing you wanted to make a film. You can't go backwards. I know which we filmed it. Speaker 4: 03:57 Well, it's funny cause we went in, I mean we try and always every show we've been playing, we try to capture it in some way, whether it's not, whether it's somebody, one of our friends coming down to just shoot on their iPhone or our friend Andrew Hughes who has been shooting the bands since we started. He, you know, we really saw this as, okay, this is going to be a a good night in our, in our wildest dreams. We thought cool. Maybe like, you know, we'll get like a hundred people there. And it ended up just being a completely packed house. And so, uh, we knew we should film it in some way and capture it. And we did. And we got lucky. Everything kind of worked. I mean we had all the trappings and pitfalls of the original last waltz work. Cameras were dying. Camera man didn't start shooting until halfway. Some people didn't show up. We got down to like one camera actually working in the back of the room. You know, we knew it was something we needed to capture. And in doing it after it we'd realize, wow, well a lot of people couldn't be there. A lot of people who were there wanted to, wanted to see it, wanted to kind of relive the night and we felt like we owed it to everyone to do it. Speaker 2: 05:07 And Lou belly-up is an iconic venue here in San Diego. What do you think the documentary captures about that? Speaker 3: 05:13 Well, a lot of the bands play there on a regular basis. There's a lot of bands, a lot of band members that joined in are from north county bands. The, I just think that earthiness, the good sound, the space was important. He didn't know that at first that it was going to sell 600 700 tickets, but a it packed out. It's just, it's just such a wonderful, you can kind of wrap around the stage, all the people and they've supported local music for a long time and then, you know, had the rolling stones play there as well. Uh, so it's kind of a cool stage to be on, and it's wonderful that everybody supported it all to come, come together. The club included along with all the bands. Speaker 2: 05:53 All right. Well, I want to thank you both very much. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Speaker 1: 05:58 And that was Beth Armando speaking with Daniel Cervantes and Lou Niles. Mrs. Henry presents the last waltz screens this Sunday at the Oceanside international film festival, and it kicks off Wednesday also at the Sunshine Brooks Theater.