17th Catalina Film Festival
The 2027 edition continues the festival’s island identity with screenings, filmmaker gatherings, audience events, and year-round Institute activity.
Festival Overview
Festival & Events
The 17th Catalina Film Festival returns September 25–27, 2027, bringing filmmakers, audiences, industry guests, screenings, events, and island atmosphere together on Catalina.
Overview
A destination festival for independent cinema.
Catalina Film Festival is built around three connected experiences: films on the island, conversations around the work, and a destination setting that turns attendance into a full festival weekend.
September 25–27, 2027
A focused festival weekend designed around cinema, arrival, conversation, community, and the distinctive atmosphere of Catalina Island.
Imagination · Education · Destination
The festival reflects the Institute’s wider mission: supporting storytellers, creating learning spaces, and making Catalina part of the cinematic experience.
What to expect
Films, conversations, events, and island rhythm.
The festival experience is not only a list of screenings. It is a weekend of arrivals, premieres, filmmaker introductions, audience conversations, receptions, awards, and informal moments that happen between venues.
As the official programme is released, this page should become the public guide for festival structure, featured events, guest information, venue orientation, schedule highlights, and practical planning.
Festival experience
A weekend with a clear rhythm.
Guests should immediately understand how the festival feels: arrive by water, orient around Avalon, move between screenings, stay for conversations, and let the island carry the atmosphere.
The crossing begins the festival
The journey to Catalina gives the weekend its first cinematic moment: the ferry, the harbor, the island, and the shift into festival time.
Discover films and filmmakers
Screenings place audiences close to independent storytellers, new work, creative risk, and the conversations that follow.
Stay beyond the screening
Receptions, panels, Q&As, awards, informal meetings, and island walks are part of the festival’s value.
Festival pillars
What this festival brings together.
The overview should help guests, filmmakers, sponsors, press, and community partners understand the full shape of the weekend before the final schedule is published.
Arrivals & red carpet
Opening moments set the tone: arrivals, portraits, press visibility, guests, filmmakers, and the first public energy of the festival.
Guests & gatherings
Receptions and social gatherings help the festival become more than a screening calendar: they make space for relationships.
Awards & honors
Awards coverage celebrates filmmakers, gives the festival editorial rhythm, and helps selected work continue beyond Catalina.
Films & programme
A home for the official programme.
Once the official selections and schedule are released, this section should guide visitors toward films, screening blocks, filmmaker events, special programmes, and ticketed experiences.
Official films
Feature films, documentaries, short films, animation, genre work, student projects, and other selected works should be organized clearly for discovery.
Explore filmsScreenings & events
The programme should help guests understand what happens each day, where to go, and how much time to leave between events.
Tickets & passesSubmission pathway
Filmmakers should use FilmFreeway for official categories, rules, fees, deadlines, and submission requirements.
Submit a film
For guests
Plan the festival as a full island weekend.
Catalina requires a different kind of planning from a city festival. Guests should think about ferry timing, venue distance, accommodation, mobile signal, evening return plans, and downloaded information.
The best experience comes from preparing the essentials early, then leaving enough space for films, conversations, walks, meals, and unexpected moments.
Festival weekend
A simple public structure.
Until the final schedule is released, the site can communicate the broad guest journey without inventing exact times or events.
Arrival & opening energy
Guests arrive, orient around Avalon, collect passes or tickets, attend first screenings, and begin the festival weekend.
Screenings, panels & gatherings
The main festival rhythm develops through films, Q&As, conversations, receptions, and audience discovery.
Final screenings & recognition
The weekend closes with final events, awards, filmmaker recognition, last island moments, and return travel.
Community
Catalina is part of the festival identity.
The festival is shaped by place: Avalon Harbor, the island’s film history, the venues, local businesses, visitors, residents, and the experience of gathering for cinema away from the mainland.
Hollywood’s island frame
Catalina gives the festival a setting that feels cinematic before the screening begins.
After the films
The night atmosphere extends the festival into conversations, harbor walks, dinners, and informal meetings.
The crossing matters
The ferry crossing turns arrival into a memorable part of the public experience.
September 25–27, 2026
Cinema, island, and community in one weekend.
Use this page as the public festival overview. As official details are confirmed, add the final schedule, featured events, guests, awards, venue information, and day-by-day programme.