WATSONVILLE — The Watsonville Film Festival returned in full force last week, with four days of film screenings, special events and more.
For the first time ever, the event was held at the Watsonville Youth Center. According to co-founder and director of the festival Consuelo Alba, it was a big success at the new location.
“In previous venues we sometimes only had 100 seats,” she explained. “Moving to the Youth Center doubled our capacity.”
This year’s festival team worked to turn the center into a makeshift movie theater, which Alba said many people were “blown away” by.
“It was an amazing transformation,” she said.
In addition to film screening and discussions, the festival included a dance concert and other special events, some of which were sold out and ended up being standing-room only.
On Wednesday Alba and her team were still crunching official numbers, but she confirmed that attendance definitely rose from last year. Festival goers came from as far away as the East Bay.
“It looks like word is getting around,” Alba said. “More people are finding out about us every year.”
For information about the Watsonville Film Festival and its year-round events visit watsonvillefilmfest.org.
