SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Film Festival is celebrating 25 years.
“We’re screening about 200 films,” said Adam Rocha, executive director and founder.
This year’s event is expected to bring hundreds of people from across the world to the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.
There will be several categories including narrative, documentary, animation and experimental, plus two new categories food film and music videos.
“What we’ve been doing for the past 25 years is bringing the film movement forward in our city,” Rocha said.
Rocha said there is a lot of local talent showcasing their work this year.
“This year we showcase 21 films from San Antonio, 21 filmmakers and so it’s kind of putting these San Antonio filmmakers side by side with films that have multimillion-dollar production budgets,” Rocha said.
Local filmmaker Aaron Lee Lopez has seen many changes in the industry.
“Because of the digital air, it’s a lot easier for kids and people, you know, whoever is shooting movies can do this a lot easier, even if it’s like something simple like shooting like an indie film with your iPhone,” Lopez said.
Lopez has two movies in this year's film festival.
From a young age, he always knew this is what he wanted to do.
“I’ve been shooting my dad’s 8-millimeter camera since I was a little kid,” Lopez said.
Lopez has a message to people with big dreams in the film industry.
“Learn your craft as much as you can, and practice it as much as you can. Get technical, learn all the tools that you have on the cameras, learn the editing software and just practice as much as you can,” Lopez said.