At its inception in 2005, the then titled "Sunscreen Film and Video Festival" was fortunate to find a home at the quaint Studio@620, a local arts gallery in St. Petersburg, Florida. The burgeoning festival screened 35 short and feature films over a two-day period, including two world premieres and played to a crowd of over 600 attendees and filmmakers, which at times resulted in a standing-room only.
In 2007 and 2008, the historic Vinoy Renaissance Resort and Golf Club hosted Sunscreen in its picturesque downtown St. Petersburg ballroom. As Sunscreen continued to expand and gain in popularity, increasing the number of films and world premieres, in 2009, Sunscreen moved its venue to a centralized shopping district and a 20-screen movie theater. The three-year-old festival featured an impressive amount of films and celebrity appearances by actors like John Travolta, Kelly Preston (2008 and 2010), Patrick Wilson, Bill Cobbs, Jefferey Donovan, Michael Rooker, and Billy Dee Williams, to name a few.
Shortly after Sunscreen’s 2009 festival, MovieMaker magazine voted Sunscreen one of the “25 Coolest Film Fests” in the country and was voted the Best Tampa Bay Area Film Festival in 2012 by Tampa Bay Magazine.
In 2013, the Sunscreen Film Festival expanded to Los Angeles, holding two film festivals each year: the original St. Petersburg, Florida version in the spring and the newly opened Los Angeles version in the fall. Between 2013-2014, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences proudly selected Sunscreen to join its ranks as the 23rd film festivals in the nation to be sponsored and acknowledged and awarded a Festival Grant.
Today, Sunscreen boasts an annual attendance of over 10,000! and is organized and presented by the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Film Society, a not-for-profit 501(c) (3) organization, which is dedicated to educating the public about the art of visual storytelling, enhancing opportunities for filmmakers to develop their craft and art, and increasing the public’s awareness and support of filmmaking as a cultural asset. The annual Sunscreen Film Festival supports and enhances St. Petersburg’s economic profile by putting on an internationally recognized event to draw tourism and international media coverage to St. Petersburg, FL.
