Tracie Donahue

HOLLYWOOD OR HOLY-WOOD?

Granite Bay, Ca._ The air was crisp outside with a slight fog settling over the small town of Granite Bay which is a suburb of California’s capitol city, Sacramento. On the evening of Friday, November 17, the parking lot of a local community church was packed, the café located in the church courtyard was open for business but not because of a church service. Bayside Church was hosting its first annual 7C’s Film Festival. Silver and white balloons lined the entrance to the gymnasium-styled church building and popcorn, candy and soda were being sold inside the lobby. People were buzzing around smiling from ear to ear just happy to be at a Christian film festival.
The 7C’s Film Festival came to life because of the dream of one award winning director, Leonard Carillo. Carillo is an independent filmmaker who brought an idea to the pastors at Bayside just over a year ago. His dream was to start a film school and develop Christian movies that not only had a message, but that also had the quality of a Hollywood produced movie without the “Hollywood” values.
The creative arts pastor from Bayside, John Volinsky, said “There is a movement out there for believers across the country to get involved and create creative films that make a difference. This festival is not meant to be preachy. We don’t want to have some kind of message that we hammer home to everyone. We just want Christians to be able to express their creativity and to use their God given talents in a way that is cutting edge.”
Nancy Heath, creative director from Bayside video, said “We live in a visual world and so much of what we see in the media shapes everything we do, everything we say, and the way we live our lives. I think Christians come back in and say we have some real strong values, morals and beliefs. Faith is what is going to change the world and Christians can get into this industry and make a big difference.”
Bayside is definitely not your typical church with 8-10 thousand people streaming through the church doors on any given Sunday, a band that rivals any rock band on the radio, and a pastor that has preached a Sunday sermon wearing a football jersey; it only seems fitting that they would also have a film festival. You can even buy tickets on their online ticket sales called none other then, “Bandango.” “Bayside is a church for people who don’t like church,” said Heath. “We want this festival to be a hub for Christian filmmakers. This is a great venue for them. We want diversity, comedy, drama, and documentaries.”
In 7C’s first festival on Friday night, Carillo obtained his dream when the festival debuted to an impressive crowd of just over 500 people. The festivities were hosted by, Mark Standriff, otherwise known as the “Mark in the Morning” on the Christian radio station, the FISH, and also featured the band Maximillan. It was a fairly limited event displaying two shorts, directed by students, and a music video and feature that were directed by Carillo. The crowd seemed to enjoy every segment of the festival giving raucous rounds of applause in between each film. The closing minutes of the evening were given to Carillo, who choked back the tears and thanked everyone for coming and being a part of his dream.
Bayside Church and the 7C’s film festival will be open for entries from all around the globe starting next year. “This is just the beginning, we would ultimately like a festival that spans a few days,” said Volinsky The festival will not only accept films from Christian filmmakers, but also from those filmmakers that have clean, morally conducive films that would fall within their PG rating parameters. Future festival attendees can find out more information about Bayside from their website www.baysideonline.com.
Written by,
Tracie Donahue