Film buffs and aspiring filmmakers will swarm the streets of the Gaslamp Quarter for the San Diego Film Festival opening Wednesday, Sept. 29. The five-day event includes feature-length, short and documentary films of all genres. Educational workshops and panels provide an inside look at the process and business of filmmaking, while Q&A sessions with directors and cast members give audiences a behind-the-scenes view of filmmaking.

Now in its third year, the festival has grown again. A fourth auditorium has been added at the Pacific Gaslamp Theatre. More panels and workshops have been scheduled. And this year the San Diego Film Foundation, which produces the event, hosted its first screenwriting contest, garnering more than 600 entries. The foundation received more than 1,100 submissions for the festival and had the arduous task of narrowing down the entries to just 85 films. Film festival founder and executive director Robin Laatz expects attendance of more than 20,000 people.

And what would any self-respecting film fest be without parties and celebrities? Participants will get a little taste of Hollywood as they party with celebs and moviemakers at some of the swankiest joints in town. Let the schmoozing begin.

The festival kicks off tonight with the screening of Dear Frankie, followed by an Opening Night Premiere Party at Jimmy Love’s. Friday night’s Industry Party at the Culy Warehouse is a not-to-be-missed event for anyone in the biz – or looking to break into it. The festival’s premiere gala is the Actor’s Ball and Awards Ceremony on Saturday night at the Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Hotel. Academy Award-winning actors, filmmakers, press and film enthusiasts will converge at the black-tie event to honor filmmakers in 13 competitive categories. After all the films have run, the festival winds down with the Closing Night Film & Wrap Party, when the Audience Choice Awards will be presented.

Celebrities making appearances include Cliff Robertson, who will receive this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Jeff Bridges, Phyllis Diller, Soleil Moon Frye, James Russo, Rick Schroder, James Van Der Beek, Brad Rowe, Michael Corbett and Susan McDougal.

Diller, in addition to receiving this year’s Governor’s Award, will be on hand for the screening of Goodnight We Love You, a documentary about her life.

“She just retired from working in Vegas as a comedienne two years ago,” explained Laatz. “The film highlights her last show in Vegas and goes behind the scenes with her.”

The Governor’s Award is presented to “someone who has crossed media – theater, film, television – with grace, and who’s been a role model and inspiration to others,” said Laatz.

This year the festival will present a gay and lesbian film track sponsored by Film Out –the retooled and renamed organization that produces the annual Outfest San Diego. The gay and lesbian film festival, which typically takes place in late September, is now scheduled for April 2005.

“What we said is rather than drop it all together, why don’t you do a smaller segment, kind of a mini fest, within our festival,” Laatz said. “So we’ve got three gay and lesbian films, kind of like a track of films, one Thursday night, one Friday night and one Saturday night.”

Eating Out, screening Thursday, is about a hunky poli-sci major with a fondness for aggressive girls, and an aggressive girl who falls for gay theater boys. The two turn out to be a match made in therapy. Friday night’s Sugar, an official selection of the Inside Out Festival in Toronto, is a provocative and funny coming-of-age love story between Cliff, a restless teen living in the suburbs, and Butch, a street hustler. Tying the Knot follows up Saturday night. Tying the Knot, the official selection at Outfest Los Angeles and the Frameline Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in San Francisco, is the politicized story of gay couples that want to marry and the people determined to stop them.

The festival also features works by local filmmakers, including Savanna Washington’s Angels with an Attitude, the only full-length feature film by a San Diegan.

Washington’s romantic comedy revolves around three flunky angels – a drag queen, a blues singer and a beauty queen – who have one last chance to redeem themselves by teaching their charges what love is. Chaos ensues as the angels try to outwit, out-dress and out-fuss each other in the face of love.

“They’re all a menace,” said director Washington, “and they’re all divas.”

A blues singer and likely diva herself, Washington wrote the screenplay borrowing liberally from her own life. “I have a lot of gay men friends and some of them are just great drag queens. And having a lot of friends that are gay men, I just have been privy to a lot of information,” she said winkingly.

Washington credits the festival with providing unique opportunities and broad exposure to San Diego filmmakers.

“A lot of the industry distributors, studios – a lot of those people we just don’t have access to until this festival like this comes to town,” she said.

“Especially for an independent (filmmaker), if I try to go to L.A. and knock on these people’s doors, they’ll carry me away,” she quipped. “When I go to a film festival, I’m on par with them. I have a chance to be in a room with them, and have conversations with people I wouldn’t normally have access to.”

With its proximity to Hollywood, great climate and local attractions, San Diego was recently recognized by FilmThreat.com as one of the nation’s top 10 vacation film festivals. The city is also proving to be fertile breeding ground for local filmmakers.

In addition to Angels with an Attitude, a number of shorts by San Diego filmmakers will be presented together in two editions of Celluloid San Diego. The festival will also screen Never Been Done, by local writer and director Matthew J. Powers. The documentary is about the life of Jon Corner, the first pro skateboarder with a prosthetic leg.

The city boasts a solid educational infrastructure, strong industry talent and a film commission dedicated to making filming in the city a viable business proposition. With productions moving to states like New Mexico and northward to Canada due to lower overhead costs, San Diego’s film-friendly environment will help grow its reputation as Hollywood’s Backlot. And the film festival can only help.

“The San Diego Film Festival has become a really prestigious film festival. They’ve only been up three years and it’s amazing the talent, the quality of movies,” said Washington. “I’m really honored to be in the festival. I don’t take it for granted for one minute that we got in.”

Tickets are $60 for screening passes and $89 for festival passes, which provide admittance to all screenings, panels, seminars and parties. Individual tickets to panels and seminars are $5, and film screenings are $10. For more information, visit www.gaylesbiantimes.com