The fifth annual Santa Clarita International Film Festival was held over the weekend at Laemmle Newhall with this year’s theme focused on Filipino culture.
Lisa deSouza, founder and executive director of SCIFF, said she created the festival after she realized there were no film festivals in the Santa Clarita Valley and she wanted to change that.
“But I thought it would be really super cool if I could enter my work into the film festival where it’s all industry town. And there wasn’t one. I heard there was one like a long time ago in the ’90s, but currently there wasn’t one,” deSouza said.
Soon after that realization, deSouza decided to start something small and now five years later it has “ballooned and became huge.”
On the opening night of the festival, deSouza said that there were people from Texas displaying their work and that there were going to be panels, table reads and it was going to be an all-encompassing experience with stand-up comedians showcasing their work and her film project “Respect the Duck” being shown on the big screen.
Now, after the dust has settled on the film festival, deSouza laughed during a phone interview Wednesday afternoon and said she does not want to hear the acronym “SCIFF” for a while until plans get in motion for next year’s festival.
When asked how the community responded to the theme this year, deSouza said it was embraced wholeheartedly and that her goal for the festival is to expand its international presence.
“I mean, we have a population of 7,000 Filipinos in Santa Clarita, right? And now, we’re on their radar. We definitely want to be involved,” deSouza said. “We’ll see how we can bring in more filmmakers and directors into 2026 and keep expanding on that cultural, global outreach that we’re all about. So now it’s not just a local community, but an international community as well.”
Looking back over the weekend, deSouza said there were some things that worked well.
“I think what worked really well again was our comedy. That was a huge, huge hit. Our table reads did really, really well. Them (being) super excited that we’re going to keep on expanding on those, really excited too with the music that came through and then, you know, just their excitement to build into 2026,” deSouza said.
However, there were some small road bumps as well.
“It’s tight in the industry right now. It’s tight economically across the board. And when that happens, you know, sponsorships go down, all of that fun stuff. But what was really great is we, we actually went qualitatively, took less films this year, and I think that that also really improved not only how competitive it was, but also just kind of, again, the level of the films that we were taking in,” deSouza said.
What’s next for deSouza and her team is sorting out how do they improve, when should they cut off submissions and how can they be more efficient next year.
“All of those things are conversations that are very much in swirl right now, and yeah, we’ll figure it out,” deSouza said.
The list of awards from the ceremony are as follows:
- Best Animated Short: “Christopher & The Bug.”
- Best Foreign Short: “Zagbeto — Les Murmures de Masque.”
- Best Documentary Short: “Jade Earrings of the Last Empress.”
- Best Faith Based Short: “Sheltered.”
- Best Narrative Short: “The One That Got Away.”
- Best Foreign Feature: “La Jesus.”
- Best Documentary Feature: “The Future Shapes the Past.”
- Best Faith Based Feature: “The Empty Church.”
- Best Narrative Feature: “Pieces of Lilo.”
- Best Micro Short: “Keep On.”
- Best Music Video: “Until the Last Minute.”
- Best Pitch Trailer / Sizzle Reel: “Towards Galaxy’s End — Proof of Concept.”
- Best Actor: Erik Roset in “Fidelidad.”
- Best Actress: Sekina Tadja in “Zagbeto — Les Murmures de Masque.”
