The 16th annual Catalina Film Festival returns to Avalon September 25–27, bringing filmmakers, audiences, and industry guests together for a focused three-day destination weekend of screenings, conversations, red carpets, parties, and awards. The festival’s digital program will continue online through Oct. 4.
Written and directed by Catherine Hardwicke, STREET SMART features an ensemble cast including Isiah Hilt, Isabelle Fuhrman, Yara Shahidi, Michael Cimino, Kaitlyn Kemp, Bevin Bru, Skeet Ulrich, Paris Jackson, Virginia Madsen, Sally Struthers, Marcia Gay Harden and Heather Mazur. Cast and crew to attend.
New for 2026, CFF also introduces the Catalina Retreat Lounge at the new El Encanto Hotel, an exclusive Friday afternoon gathering from 3–5 p.m.; the Metropole Cinema Room, a new festival screening destination; and a dedicated Masterclass Sunday, bringing filmmakers and entertainment professionals together for conversations spanning financing, distribution, criticism and the business of getting films made—and seen. For the complete schedule, Festival Passes, Day Passes, individual tickets, ferry information, and lodging options, visit CatalinaFilm.org.
Avalon Theatre at Catalina Casino Catalina Film Festival will honor filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke with its Career Tribute Award, on Friday, Sept. 25, from 6:30-10 p.m., celebrating a career defined by bold storytelling, cultural impact and an instinct for capturing young people at transformative moments in their lives. Hardwicke’s tribute also marks a return to Catalina Film Festival. She previously attended the festival in 2017 with The Black Ghiandola, a short film she co-directed alongside Theodore Melfi and Sam Raimi for the nonprofit Make A Film Foundation, which grants children with serious or life-threatening medical conditions the opportunity to fulfill their filmmaking dreams Hardwicke made her directorial debut with the raw and groundbreaking Sundance-winning Thirteen before directing the cult favorite Lords Of Dogtown. She went on to direct Twilight, launching the blockbuster film franchise that ultimately grossed more than $3 billion worldwide. Her more recent work includes Prisoner’s Daughter, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Dreams In The Witch House for Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
Nearly a decade later, Hardwicke returns to Catalina to be honored for her remarkable career and to debut the West Coast Premiere of her latest film, Street Smart.
Joining Hardwicke for the presentation will be Street Smart co-writer Nic Sheff, author of the memoir Tweak. His story, together with his father David Sheff’s memoir Beautiful Boy, inspired the acclaimed 2018 feature Beautiful Boy.
Erin “Tiny” Blackwell, the subject of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Streetwise and of TINY, an Officially Selected screenplay in the 2026 Catalina Film Festival, will also help introduce the evening’s presentation of Street Smart.
Street Smart
Written & Directed by Catherine Hardwicke
Starring Isabelle Fuhrman, Yara Shahidi, Skeet Ulrich, Paris Jackson, Virginia Madsen, Sally Struthers, Marcia Gay Harden and Heather Mazur
A lively group of street kids in Venice Beach help one another chase their dreams with humor, street smarts and a little Robin Hood-style larceny. When they learn their camp is in danger of being shut down—and a new girl pushes the group toward bending, or breaking, their moral code—the makeshift family begins to fracture. Together, they must fight to protect the place they call home and the bonds they’ve built along the way.
Opening Night will also include Little Chaplin, a multigenerational collaboration from the Campos-Tarantino family, screening before Street Smart.