The Coast Film Foundation is getting a boost in awareness thanks to the December opening of Rivian Automotive Inc.’s (Nasdaq: RIVN) new retail center at the revamped South Coast Cinemas building.
The Laguna Beach-based foundation will host the latest edition of its annual Coast Film & Music Festival, first held in 2019, this November. This year, and going forward, the festival is expected to hold events at the EV company’s revitalized retail and theater site along Coast Highway.
Co-founders Ben Warner and Enich Harris last year applied for the organization to become a nonprofit to prioritize the community aspect of the festival.
“We realized we weren’t building something to sell,” Warner told the Business Journal.
“Our vision to build an event for the community will be more effective as a nonprofit,” Harris added.
Funding is gained through sponsorships and ticket sales to cover costs and make donations to other nonprofits such as Surfrider, Protect Our Winters and Laguna Canyon.
Warner and Harris said the foundation is an opportunity for local businesses and residents to be deeply engaged in the festival and its film efforts in the area.
EV Sponsor
Rivian’s first interaction with Coast Film was as a sponsor of the festival in 2020. The event was held at The Ranch at Laguna Beach, another business partner of the foundation, where the Irvine automaker parked one of its R1 electric vehicles for attendees to see, well before the EVs had hit the market for sale.
Formalizing the partnership with Rivian, the Coast Film Foundation is now in charge of curating two films per week at the South Coast Theater showroom, which now serves as the automaker’s flagship retail center and “brand awareness headquarters.”
“People are becoming more aware of us, and we’re being seen as a new, local platform,” Warner said.
The largest donation it has received so far was $8,000 from the city of Laguna Beach and its lodging establishments.
Film Roster
The festival screens a variety of independent documentaries and outdoor adventure films during the five-day event. The founders said they saw “saw a hole in other festival gatherings” where this genre of films was overlooked.
“We’re bringing Laguna Beach’s two communities together to celebrate the outdoors,” the duo said of presenting films of both land and sea.
There are art installations, speaker panels with pro athletes and activists, and live music performances throughout the week.
For the past couple of years, the show has been held at the Festival of Arts campus in Laguna Beach.
Last year, the festival screened 80 films and attracted around 4,000 people, which is double the attendance from its first year.
Warner and Harris’ long-term goal for the show is to develop a traveling version of the festival to visit different cities in the U.S. year-round while keeping the home base in Laguna Beach.
“We’re packaging the energy here in Laguna Beach to remind people who live here and aspire to visit about how cool this experience is and share it with emerging markets,” Warner said.
They plan to grow in the local community first through donations, sponsors and activities.
Coast Film will eventually host more events in the city related to the annual festival. The Rivian theater is just a start.
Another vision is to create a substantial fund to provide support and resources for local, young, up-and-coming creators through grants and scholarships.
The organization held its first student filmmaker showcase last year by putting on short films made by the middle grade and high school students of OC schools, mostly from Laguna Beach classrooms and the Community Roots Academy in Laguna Niguel.
One of the winners’ works was recently screened at the Rivian theater.
