La Voz

Media Credit: Photos by James Schulte / La Voz The top floor of Camera 12 Cinemas in San Jose showcases promotional materials for fi lms featured in this year's festival. [Click to enlarge]

Edward James Olmos, star of numerous films and mastermind of the SciFi channel's "Battlestar Galactica" series, recieved the Maverick Spirit award for fi lm artists and technological innovators. [Click to enlarge]

William H. Macy speaks to the press prior to screening "Edmond." [Click to enlarge]

The final curtain falls, the theater lights come up, and the audience walks out of a theater that has gone quiet. So ends the 16th annual Cinequest Film Festival.

This March, film lovers from all over the Bay Area came to see the talent that the Cinequest Institute put together: a collection of over 191 feature and short films, and 35 premieres.

Not content with simply playing films, Cinequest features forums on critical aspects of movie making, with experts on hand to tell tales of their craft.

And Cinequest never runs short of stars during the festival. Most appear to show off an upcoming project.

William H. Macy was there to show his new film "Edmond" in addition to another film he starred in on the first night of the festival, "Thank you For Smoking." Kurtwood Smith ("That 70's Show," "RoboCop") came to show off his new film, "Hard Scrambled."

Each year organizers award what they call the Maverick Spirit award. This year, the award went to Edward James Olmos and Avi Arad, both successful producers.

Olmos has produced and directed "American Me" and "Walkout," which was screened at the festival and will be shown on HBO later this month.

Arad is the CEO of Marvel Studios, and an extremely successful independent producer who boasts a string of eight consecutive No.1 box offices hits. He is regarded as the driving force behind a Marvel filmmaking renaissance.

In the past, this award has been given to such notables as Sir Ben Kingsley, Spike Lee and Kevin Spacey of American Beauty.

If you're one of the many who couldn't attend, this is not the end; the Web site at http://www.Cinequestonline.org is still up.

The site is a gateway to the moviemaking community that provides information on mentoring programs for aspiring filmmakers, the Camp Cinequest summer program for elementary students, and of course, purchasing DVDs of films from the Cinequest lineup.

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