The L.A. Harbor International Film Festival will return this week, running from Thursday to Sunday, March 13-16, with films rolling out at several venues– including on board the Battleship Iowa.
The festival, now in its 22nd year, is directed by founder Stephanie Mardesich, a former USC film student who turned her love of the cinema into the San Pedro festival that brings industry classics together with new offerings by up and coming filmmakers.
Normally held at the Warner Grand Theatre, the film fest, along with several other annual events in San Pedro, had to find other venues while the historic movie palace remains closed until late 2026 for improvements.
The festival’s Hollywood Nostalgia Tribute will take place at 4 p.m. Saturday on the Battleship Iowa’s fantail, which will offer a fitting ambiance for the movie’s theme: that film is MGM’s “On the Town,” a World War II musical about Navy plebes on liberty in New York.
When last year’s festival held its first movie on the World War II battleship — “Anchors Aweigh” — it “was magical,” Mardesich said, “with the sounds and sights of the harbor as the audience viewed a classic movie about World War II aboard an authentic battleship of the era.”
Consessions — popcorn, candy, beer, wine — will be sold at Vicky’s Doghouse Cafe, located on the port side of the ship, and there also will be a special menu featuring gourmet hot dogs.
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But there’s much more to the four-day festival.
On Thursday, for example, the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium will host the educational program “Read the Book, See the Movie,” which this year invited classrooms that have read the novel “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne to watch the 1954 Academy-Award-nominated film based on the book. More than 21,000 books have been distributed to students and community members since 2004. This year’s participants include Van Deene Steam Academy elementary school, Dr. Richard A. Vladovic Harbor Teacher Preparation Academy, San Pedro and Mary Star of the Sea high schools. Students discuss the book before seeing the film.
The formal opening night program, from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, will feature a happy hour with a showing of the oral history project “Stories of Los Angeles Harbor Area” at the Dalmatian American Club’s main bar, 1639 S. Palos Verdes St., in San Pedro. Reservations are requested at 310-831-9821.
Closing day on Sunday, meanwhile, is known as “DocSunday” and will take place at 2 p.m. at the YMCA Harbor Area’s Julia Morgan Auditorium, 437 W. Ninth St. The final day is devoted to non-fiction film, and this year features “Patrice: The Movie,” which is about a couple with disabilities who want to get married — but worry they will lose their benefits. Mardesich said she viewed the film as a press delegate for the 68th BFI London Film Festival in October.
See laharborfilmfest.com for updates and more specifics.
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