Dec. 17, 2009

*So long2009, helloCSUMB First Night Film Festival*

Amid family-friendly art workshops and marionette theater shows, hot-blooded salsa grooves and buoyant swing dancing, and the pageantry and puppetry of the Twilight Process parade, is the inaugural CSUMB First Night Film Festival.

Starting at 3:30 p.m. in the Golden State Theater on Alvarado Street, 13 short films – the longest is 11 minutes – will be screened. They include documentaries, music videos, animation and narratives.

Among the works to be screened is a seven-minute experimental film, Ella and the Astronaut, by recent graduates Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck. Ella is the first in a three-film series they have made exploring children's ideas of imagination and reality. The second installment, Charlie and the Rabbit, will be shown at next month's Sundance Film Festival.

More than 70 performances are scheduled at 25 venues and locales across the city from 3 p.m. to midnight. Admission buttons are required for all indoor events. Adult prices are $15 in advance and $20 on Dec. 31; youth prices are $12 and $15. Tickets are available at a variety of locations around town and on the First Night website.

First Night Monterey, now in its 17th year, is an alcohol-free New Year's Eve community arts celebration designed for all ages. Musicians, dancers, singers, poets and other artisans transform the streets of the city into a festive setting. FNM is a nonprofit arts organization whose mission is to bring families together and unite the community in all its diversity through the visual and performing arts.

Learn more about the university's Teledramatic Arts and Technology program.

A complete schedule is available atwww.firstnightmonterey.org.