When the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival rolls into South Valley next week, audiences will be treated to a diverse lineup of films, many created by local talent with deep roots in the host communities.
Named one of the “25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” by Movie Maker Magazine last year, the Morgan Hill-based festival has become a launching pad for filmmakers from all walks of life. This year’s lineup features an unprecedented number of submissions from local creators—so many that festival organizers had to make difficult choices about which films to include.
“We got an incredible amount, this year, of films from local filmmakers,” said Mattie Scariot, the festival’s director. “It was the first time we’ve had to actually turn away quite a few films, and I was really sad about that. I really try to focus on local films from our communities.”
The festival divides screenings geographically, with Morgan Hill hosting Northern California films and Gilroy showcasing Southern California selections. Filmmakers then come together for panel discussions and networking opportunities.
“The idea is to get all of these filmmakers that are close enough to meet and share resources and work together,” Scariot said. “It is a way of encouraging them to make more films.”
Among this year’s standout local offerings is “The Chihuahua Shake,” an animated musical created by Morgan Hill-raised Chase Olivera. The movie features anthropomorphic dogs standing in for humans.
“It’s about a dachshund who is a famous painter in Paris, and he paints all of these dogs, and there is this chihuahua who comes in, and he can’t paint him because he is just shaking too much,” Olivera said. “There is a big musical number at the end, where they sing about why the chihuahua shakes.”
The film has personal significance for Olivera, as it was inspired by the late Ellie Van Dyke, former owner of The Music Tree in Morgan Hill.
“It was inspired by her because she had a chihuahua, and she wanted to tell a story about a chihuahua who would shake,” Olivera said, noting that the film includes a nod to Van Dyke’s store. “It is also, in a way, about neurodiversity, as the dachshund is trying to figure out how to adapt to this chihuahua who has something analogous to ADHD.”
Scariot praised the film’s execution: “It is hysterical, and it’s great to have someone so talented from Morgan Hill come back home with such a great film.”
‘Amazing’ milestone
Another featured selection is “She’s Mine,” directed by 21-year-old Gilroy native Ashton Acosta-Parson, who discovered his passion for filmmaking at Gavilan College under instructor Grant Richards.
“I really got into photography, originally, and then when I went into Gavilan I didn’t really know what I wanted to do,” Acosta-Parson said. “I saw what he and his class were doing, and I thought it was very cool. The next semester, I tried it, loved it, and was completely obsessed with film.”
His short film focuses on a violent confrontation between two men.
“My film is probably the shortest of all the films, it is just a brief fight scene between two guys,” he said. “I just really wanted to make a really good hand-to-hand combat sequence.”
For Acosta-Parson, having his directorial debut accepted to an international festival is a significant milestone.
“To be a part of something that is not only local here, but is an international film festival, really felt amazing,” he said. “It really means a lot and boosts my confidence.”
Christopher High School graduate Cole Davis, 23, will present “Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours (a critique of the passive bourgeois),” a film he produced for a friend’s USC application.
Davis, who discovered filmmaking in sixth grade, studied screenwriting at Cal State Northridge but found his true calling as a producer. His film takes on serious social issues with a lighthearted approach.
“It’s an entertaining commentary,” he said. “It’s a good way to look at an issue that has been raised in the past, about socialism or communism. We were able to take this charged concept and turn it into this lighthearted situation.”
Happenstance hit
Perhaps one of the most anticipated local screenings is “The Mighty Oaks,” a documentary by Morgan Hill financial advisor Brad Ledwith chronicling the creation of a youth lacrosse program that eventually led to the sport being adopted at both Morgan Hill high schools.
Ledwith, who moved to Morgan Hill in 1998, had no filmmaking experience before undertaking this project.
“As far as filmmaking is concerned, that is by happenstance. This is my very first film,” he said. “It was truly one of those community efforts to get something from nothing, to start something big.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic cut the team’s inaugural season short after just 27 practices, Ledwith began sharing anecdotes online about his experience building the program from scratch despite knowing little about lacrosse.
“A couple of people said, ‘You have to write a book or something,’ and I thought, well, maybe we could do a movie,” Ledwith recalled.
After initial attempts to secure funding fell through, Ledwith persevered. “I said to myself, ‘this story really needs to be told.’ That is how I got into filmmaking.”
“I’m really proud of Brad,” Scariot said. “We don’t just put young filmmakers in this festival. He is a mature adult, and to decide to make a documentary on his own, and seeing what he has accomplished, it is a lot of hard work.”
Rounding out the local offerings is “Self-Loathing: Sobriety in the Multiverse,” created by longtime Hollister High School video production teacher Rob Campbell. The film follows a recovering alcoholic who finds himself adrift in “the multiverse,” reliving his choices over and over again.
“In the multiverse, we’re looking at different permutations of how things may turn out,” Campbell said. “The main character Declan, we wind up exploring different avenues of how things would turn out for him and whether or not they collide.”
Despite teaching video production since 1998, “Self-Loathing: Sobriety in the Multiverse” is Campbell’s first narrative film.
“I am a storyteller, and stories are a central piece of who I am,” he said. “But I never thought that filmmaking was something that I could do, because you have to know people, and people have to give their time to you, and I didn’t understand the nature of it. It’s a giving, collaborative thing. What’s in it for them? Well, what’s in it for them is that they love making films.”
The production was filmed with the help of students from Gavilan College, with film teacher Grant Richards receiving praise for raising a crop of highly professional young filmmakers.
“The students who worked on this production for Grant Richards’ film class were fabulous,” Campbell said. “And that told me a lot about his program. I never imagined until last spring that I would be able to enter something into the festival, and now I’m hooked.”
For Scariot, the festival’s growing reputation and increased local participation validate its purpose.
“It is to give local filmmakers an opportunity to showcase their films, that friends and family can come to,” she said. “That laurel that they get that says they are an official selection helps them a lot on their journey through the film festival circuit.”
Details
The 2025 Poppy Jasper International Film Festival will take place April 9-16 at multiple venues in Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Hollister and San Juan Bautista. To see the full program for this year’s festival and to order tickets, visit pjiff.org.
