The Santa Monica Film Festival (SMFF) now in its fourth year, will hold its second annual Moxie! Awards at Santa Monica's Bergamot Station on Monday, February 28 to celebrate the best in independent filmmaking. In total, 88 films will be shown during the four-day festival at various locations throughout Bergamot Station, which is located at 2525 Michigan Avenue at Olympic Blvd. in Santa Monica, California. Films, music, panels and nightly parties will be held throughout the four days--Friday, February 25 through Monday, February 28, with the Moxie Award ceremony on Monday evening. On the weekdays (Friday and Monday) the festival will run from 5:00pm until midnight and on the weekend it runs for 12 hours, from noon until midnight.

The festival actually runs throughout the year screening films every third Thursday as part of their Santa Monica Film Festival Series at Santa Monica's Laemmles Monica 4-Plex Theater on 2nd Street. The Moxie! Awards are the annual accolade for the very best of those films voted on by the attending audience. Festival director and founder Albert de Quay states, "where festivals across the world thrive only once a year for 10 days or so, SMFF allows a year-round platform to better serve the needs of indie filmmakers, hand in hand with the rapidly growing city of Santa Monica."

SMFF screens films of various formats including 35mm, 16mm and Beta SP. De Quay created the Seta SP format category to allow a greater number of films to be shown to a greater number of attendees.

This year's panel discussions include "Producing Content for the Web," "Sony High Definition in Film," "Sound Technology in Film, " "2000: Year of the Short Film" and "Music in Film." Ray Manzarek (of the Doors) will be this year's keynote speaker.

Karen Black

This year the festival will honor actor/director Joe Mantegna who will receive the Moxie! Tribute Award. A special retrospective on the work of director Martin Scorsese will also take place during the four days including presentations of Raging Bull, Mean Streets and Taxi Driver. Go to: http://directorsnet.com/feltham/index.html

The award-winning documentary, Karen Black, Actress at Work, (which follows Black around as she makes four films and includes her unique take on acting) will screen Friday, February 25 at 8:30, prior to her film Charades, directed by Stephen Eckelberry.

Advance tickets can be purchased through the SMFF website at www.smff.com or through www.etm.com or by calling 888-etm-tixs (888-386-8497).