Long Beach Stages International Film Festival

A silver screen and full moon both shined brightly on National Boulevard beach during a cool summer night last week.

Movie-lovers hit the sands to watch the short films of the first Long Beach International Film Festival on Aug. 30. Filmmakers and producers, city officials and local businesses came out to support the festivals first stop in Long Beach.  One of the films, "Stacked," features local surf sensation Balaram Stack, who competed in the Quiksilver Pro New York competition in Long Beach last summer. The movie was part of the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Other films featured last Thursday included “Long Beach Sunset,” a short that shows the transition of Long Beach from summer to fall, and "Modern Wartime Chronicles," a film based on the video game "Call of Duty."

Plans are already in the works to stage the Long Beach International Film Festival at the Allegria next summer. But while this year's event was held on one night and was free, that may not be the case in 2013. 

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"Next year and the years ahead, it will be multi-day event and there will be panels on screen writing, directing, and filmmaking, a big block of films, and we are really looking forward to it,” said festival co-founder Craig Weintraub.

Christine Lopez, director of marketing for the festival and owner of Christine Lopez Consulting, said about the event: "We want to bring awareness to the film festival and want to show that Nassau County, but mostly the Long Beach area, is a wonderful option for filmmakers."