When Hester Wagner’s son was four years old, she took him to a film festival by community media center Access Sacramento.
Wagner, now the board secretary of Access Sacramento, produced a movie of her own that will be shown at the upcoming film festival. She was one of many screenwriters who submitted a script and won the opportunity to turn it into a short film.
She decided to write a script based on a dream that her son had.
“I thought why not like I love the theater,” Wagner said. “I went to Old Sacramento a couple years ago to take my son to meet Santa, and he sat on Santa’s lap at the Eagle Theatre in Old Sacramento, which is the original live theater in Old Sacramento that was built in the 1840s.”
Wagner tied in her son’s dream with the real history of Old Sacramento and the Eagle Theatre.
“So that was what inspired me to write, not because I’m a writer and I decided to write a script,” she said. “It’s because I felt like I had a story that fit writing a script about Sacramento.”
Her film will be shown on Saturday, October 11, at the Crest Theater as part of Access Sacramento’s 25th annual film festival: A Place Called Sacramento.
Access Sacramento, a nonprofit community media center founded in the 1980s, produces the film festival. The center serves the county through local TV channels and media training.
“We have channels 17 and 18. You can watch our local coverage also on our website,” said Donna Girot, Executive Director of Access Sacramento. “In addition to that, we give reasonably priced classes and workshops in media training, and we also provide a lending library of digital audio and video equipment so the community can lift their voices.”
A Place Called Sacramento is a film incubator program that helps aspiring filmmakers create short films about Sacramento.
Girot said the festival is a unique experience, and the program is a learning-by-doing experience for people who want to become filmmakers.
“We take a person from script to screen with a phased system of mentoring, classes, workshops and equipment availability to help them succeed,” Girot said. “But the most exciting part about it is we include the community. Once the scripts are selected, we invite the community to participate; to be on cast and crew. And it’s an all volunteer experience. It’s quite extraordinary.”
The festival selects 10 scripts annually that judges choose to turn into 10-minute films. This year, the festival will include nine short films ranging from comedy to drama to adventure.
Access Sacramento is currently facing critical funding challenges due to declining subscription fees threatening the organization’s stability. The organization relied on a 5% cable subscription tax, but revenue is declining with the rise of streaming services.
According to Girot, the upcoming festival and the community’s support are crucial for Access Sacramento’s future.
“I think probably the most important thing at the moment is to come experience this, come to the premiere,” she said. “It might be the last time we have it, which is a little melancholy, but it’s an amazing event. It’s for the community by the community.”
Filming process
Over Access Sacramento’s 25-year history, the festival has launched about 250 short films, and some have been featured at national and international festivals, according to Girot.
Film poster for ‘Uh Oh Clown,’ a film by Hester Wagner.Photo courtesy of Access Sacramento
Wagner’s film, named ‘Uh Oh Clown’ is a kids adventure short film where they try to solve a mystery and there are ghostly elements to the movie.
“My film is kind of like the short Sacramento Goonies feel,” she said. “You think it might be scary, but it’s really just about kids kind of exploring Sacramento and imagining it in a way that you’re seeing it through their eyes.”
Wagner said the cool thing about the festival is that it gives everyone an opportunity to get experience in filmmaking.
“You’re connecting with people who have never done film, with people who know what they’re doing,” Wagner said. “And everybody can kind of get that space to learn and to grow and to mess up and to network, try something that they haven’t tried.”
Before the movie is shot, Access Sacramento hosts a community event to recruit people who want to be a part of the movie making process.
“What’s extraordinary about this, and what makes it unique in the country, is that several hundred people volunteer some of their time, usually during the summer, to help create these short films,” Girot said. “I figured it out once, and it was about $80,000 worth of volunteer effort just to participate in whatever small or large way. So we honor them by having this amazing premiere at the Crest.”
Stanley Simons, a Sacramento resident, participated in the PCS film festival last year and he created a sci-fi noir thriller called ‘Cold.’ The movie was shot over two-days in El Dorado Hills and Placerville.
Simons said he was happy to have people who believed in his film and helped him turn his script into a movie.
“The experience of putting it on was amazing because I wrote the script,” he said. “I took the screenwriting course, which helped me put my ideas together and then after that, I submitted it. I was kind of nervous because I haven’t really put out a short film in quite some time.”
Cable Commission
The Sacramento Metropolitan Cable Television Commission, a government agency responsible for regulating cable and video franchises, funds community centers like Access Sacramento.
With the decline in funding, the film festival is in danger of not continuing in the future. Girot said the most important aspect of Access Sacramento is they lift voices in the community through various platforms.
“We have young college graduates who got a lot of theory in college and not a lot of practical application. We have a digital media lab. We teach editing, we have a TV studio,” Girot said. “What happens when we disappear?”
Access Sacramento has until the end of the month to come up with a plan and their hope is by December, they’ll have a vision of what to do next.
“The cable commission’s job is not to ensure our existence,” Girot said. “There is no emotional attachment to us, even though we had what, 400 letters in the last meeting, and easily, 50 people getting up and saying how it’s been instrumental in changing their professional lives. So the only ones interested are the community.”
Tickets for A Place Called Sacramento are available now, and Girot said the film premiere is going to be fun.
“People are dressed to the nines. There’s an energy about it,” Girot said. “You sit down and for 90 minutes you’re entertained by nine 10-minute films.”
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