Hollywood of Tomorrow
The Hollywood of Tomorrow is a celebration of the future of film in our community. Each year, we nominate, review, and vet professional and budding new filmmakers, as well as members of our local community, who embody, represent, and reflect our core values to the wider world.
We will celebrate three extraordinary people with the following recognition:
Impact Award
Honors a luminary in the film and media industry who exhibits exemplary professional grit and personal integrity.
Student Filmmaker Award & Scholarship
Recognizes a True West Film Center student, nominated by their instructors, who demonstrates our core values.
Jackie Hoffner Heart & Hope Award
Celebrates a community member who reflects these key attributes: Heart, Passion, Social or Community Impact, and Optimism.
Nominations for the Jackie Hoffner Heart & Hope Award are open now through September 16th! To make a nomination, click here.
The 2023 Hollywood of Tomorrow was a smashing success!
On Monday, November 13, 2023, at Little Saint in Healdsburg, CA, we broke our single event fundraising record. We celebrated three extraordinary people – 2023 Impact Award: Marcia Lucas; 2023 Student Filmmaker Award & Scholarship: Ryn Hare; and 2023 Jackie Hoffner Heart & Hope Award: Nikko Kimzin
Below, get a sneak peak of the event in pictures. For the full gallery of pictures, please visit our Facebook page.
Saturday , November 16, 2024 | 5PM-8PM
Join us at Little Saint for the
HOLLYWOOD OF TOMORROW
Funding the programs and cinemas of True West Film Center
Honoring actor Steve Zahn!
HOSTED BY
We will celebrate three extraordinary people with the following recognition:
2023 Impact Award: Marcia Lucas
Honors a film and media industry luminary who exhibits exemplary professional grit and personal integrity.
2023 Student Filmmaker Award & Scholarship: Ryn Hare
Recognizes an AVFilm student, nominated by AVFilm instructors or leadership, who demonstrates AVFilm’s core values.
2023 Jackie Hoffner Heart & Hope Award: Nikko Kimzin
Celebrates a community member who reflects these key attributes: Heart, Passion, Social or Community Impact, and Optimism.
___________
What to expect:
5PM: Walk the red carpet and step into Little Saint for signature cocktails, distinctive local wines, and delectable hors d’oeuvres. Enjoy live music from Heavyweight Champs while sipping, mingling, and reserving your slots at our famous film experience buy-ins.
6PM: The brief program begins, honoring our award recipients and highlighting the critical work of AVFilm’s educational programs. A paddle raise will follow.
7PM: Celebrate the massive fundraising success of the evening with another drink and a final set by FeatherWeight Champ.
Suggested Attire: Hollywood Glam.
SPECIAL BONUS EVENT
Join us the day before, on Sunday, November 12, at 2PM, for “A Conversation with Marcia Lucas” at the Carole L. Ellis Auditorium on the Santa Rosa Junior College Petaluma campus.
Marcia Lucas will join AVFilm Executive Director Kathryn Hecht and Sundance Director Emeritus John Cooper on stage for an intimate, deep dive into the world Ms. Lucas navigated and shaped with her landmark contributions to filmmaking. To learn more about this fabulous, one-of-a-kind event, click here.
2023 Award Receipients
Impact Award Winner: Marcia Lucas
Marcia's career as an editor took off in the late 1960s while working on commercials. Her talents soon caught the attention of Verna Fields, one of the few respected female film editors of the time. Fields needed assistance cutting a documentary and included USC student George Lucas in the project. From here, Marcia and George would form a professional and personal partnership that would change the course of cinematic history.
Marcia Lucas's remarkable career as an editor, highlighted by her central role in shaping the Star Wars franchise, cements her legacy as a trailblazing historical figure.
For shattering glass ceilings, her innovation in creating groundbreaking cinema, and for inspiring and captivating audiences all over the globe, Marcia Lucas is the recipient of the 2023 Impact Award.
Student Filmmaker Award & Scholarship Winner: Ryn Hare
Ryn is a 17-year-old high school senior who created her first film during the winter and spring of 2021. She made her first short film as a class project and grew to love making animated short films
Ryn grew up in Utah, and has loved drawing and animating since a very young age. After graduation, she plans to attend art school for animation and character design.
Jackie Hoffner Heart & Hope Award: Nikko Kimzin
From 2018-2021, he served as the Director of Education and Community Engagement at Transcendence Theater Company. He produced all education and community programming for 11,000 youth and adults annually, focusing on equitable arts access for underserved communities. He has created Corporate Professional Development programs for Google, Sotheby’s, and other Bay Area Executive Teams. Contributor to Sonoma County Arts Education Framework. Keynote speaker at CA Migrant Education, Stanford University, Emory University, UCSC, and more.
After years as a performer in New York and around the world, Nikko realized a pattern in the roles for which he was being considered: a young Latino man with a gun in a gang with a thick accent. Desperate for complex storytelling, he was faced with a choice: “Do I wait for the industry to change?” or “Do I learn new skills to help change the industry.” The latter was his start in a world of storytelling that seeks to honor and celebrate the cultural wealth of diverse communities. “And now,” says Nikko, “I get the JOY of continuing to collaborate with passionate, talented artists in creating a more inclusive and just world for all of us.”
For his commitment as a change-maker and a trailblazer, forging new paths while working to create equity in existing systems, and most especially for listening and leading with his heart, Nikko Kimzin is the 2023 Jackie Hoffner Heart & Hope Award Winner.
Thank you for all of the nominations and to the selection committee members: Renay Weissberger Fanelli, Jenness Brewer, and Matt Villano.
H.O.T. (Hollywood of Tomorrow) Hosts
Anonymous
Carol Beattie
Susan Campbell & John McKinney
Colibri Vineyard
C. Frederick & Dinna V. Eisenhart
Barbara Grasseschi & Tony Crabb
Stu Harrison & Dave Ring
Hillary & Michael Kambour
Barbara Lannin
David Levine
Kim & John Lloyd
Kevin & Rosemary McNeeley
Winky & David Merrill
Wendy Mogel & Michael Tolkin
Care Morgenstern
Lisa & Michael Rhodes
Renn Rhodes & Marty Roberts
Bob Scott & Tim McDonald
Tricia Tanoury