The La Costa Film Festival took place on the weekend of Sept. 10-13 in honor of the famous John C. McGinley and his work in over 60 feature films, as well as Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. This is the event’s third year in a row, screening over 45 films from around the world. The main event took place at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa, while also viewing at Cinepolis Luxury Cinema La Costa and the Carlsbad Dove Library.

“Of course, I am deeply honored that The Costa Film Festival has selected me to receive the 2015 Legacy Award,”  McGinley said. “Like the festival itself, my career has benefited from good fortune and required a lot of support from friends and family. But here we are, ready to have fun and enjoy some of America’s greatest films nobody knows about, yet.”

Not only did the festival celebrate films, but it also had other events and activities as well. On the opening night of the film festival, they held the ‘Sip and Savor’ Gala that showcased some of the area’s best restaurants. They also put on Q&A sessions for 18 of the featured films.

CHS senior Haylie Bantle submitted a film into the festival and placed second in the Student Short Film category.

“Myself and a few other students in CHSTV submitted a film called ‘A Buck Short’, a story of a young boy who desperately wants to earn enough money to visit his military mother, but she is stationed in another part of America far from her son,” Bantle said. “We wrote, filmed and edited the whole movie in less than 8 hours, my role was to edit the and help write the script.”

Influence of technology surrounds our society constantly, which was one of the driving factors in Bantle’s inspiration for this project.

“I’ve always loved watching movies and television,” Bantle said. “I grew up in an era where this technology has always been available and is always changing. The closest thing to film was my middle school broadcast journalism class in seventh grade. Over the six years that I’ve been a part of this program, I developed and fine-tuned my skills in all areas of the film and broadcast world.”

At the film festival, attendants had the opportunity to experience a different kind of movie viewing.

“I saw a film called ‘Welcome to Happiness’ and I really enjoyed it,” senior Hale Ambrose said. “What was cool was that at the Omni Resort the movie was played on a huge inflatable screen and we got to sit outside as well.”