Cedar City Shines With The Exciting Red Rock Film Festival

Cedar City is once again center stage in the world of independent cinema as the Red Rock Film Festival returned on Wednesday September 24^th and runs through Saturday, September 27th. Now in its 19th year, the festival will be held at Frontier Homestead State Park, bringing filmmakers and movie lovers together for four days of screenings, panels, and special events.

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Matt Marxteyn of the Red Rock Festival joined us on the Big Picture Morning Show and gave a bit of history of the festival. “It started in St. George. We would have an opening night in St. George, and the we began actually in Springdale. We began as a film series...in 2004.In 2007 we made it a film festival, and it's been going ever since,” Marxteyn said. He said the festival features international films along with academy award winning features.

Known for its mission to promote films that portray the human experience with creativity and sensitivity, the festival attracts a diverse range of work. Attendees can expect to see everything from international documentaries and narrative features to animated shorts and experimental projects. A special focus is placed on emerging talent, with categories for student and young filmmakers.

Student Filmmaker Features Animated Project

Stacia Black is one of those student filmmakers and she was also on the radio with us. The film Stacia has in the festival is an animated film called Bwinky's Little Big World of Love. “It's about a little alien and a cow that fall in love and go to space,” Black explained.

Laura Paglin has had work shown on HBO and PBS. Her entry in the Red Rock Film Festival is This Is Pike County which Paglin says is, “a documentary about a close knit rural community that among many of the problems plagued by rural communities is also suffering from the grief of an unsolved mass family murder.”

Alfonso Maiorana created the film Goddess of the Slide which is featured in this year's festival. It is the story of Ellen Mcllwaine, a Canadian musician who fought to play the slide guitar. She ended up playing with some of the biggest names including a six night performance with Jimi Hendrix. Maiorana told us how long he has been working on the project saying, “I started filming with her in 2020, during the pandemic, and in 2021, and I finished in 2024.”

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With the Sundance Film Festival leaving Utah, we asked Marxteyn if the Red Rock Film Festival could fill the gap. “We've always been an international film festival. The most films we've had was about 185. That was 2017,” Marxteyn told us.

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The Red Rock Film Festival offers a more intimate experience with opportunities to meet the artists behind the films. Tickets are available at various price points, ranging from individual screening passes to full festival packages.

You can hear the entire discussion we had with the Red Rock Film Festival participants in the podcast below.