Film Fest Tucson is showcasing a Tucson bar owner obsessed with tiki culture and one of the city’s most prominent former residents in the winter installment of the festival.

A third film takes viewers to a fabled Los Angeles hotel where rock music royalty has done more than just grab some shut-eye.

“Tucson has a deep film history,” said the festival’s curator Herb Stratford.

 Premiering these films in Tucson will add to the history while tying in Tucson’s roots. 

Stratford said the films all speak to Tucson, from glimpses of Paul McCartney’s life in Tucson with his late wife Linda to Doug “Fini” Finical’s obsession with tiki that inspired his Oro Valley speakeasy Cabali – a project that took more than three years to complete.

The festival wraps up in March with a documentary on 1970s and 1980s Rock music culture in Los Angeles. 

Film Fest Tucson premieres independent films with the filmmakers in attendance. The festival, curated by the longtime Tucson filmmaker and festival programmer Stratford, is split into two parts: one that was held in the fall and the second in the winter.

“Spreading out the dates of the festival allows for a larger opportunity to grab more titles,” Stratford said. 

 The festival partnered with Arizona Arts Live, but it has previously collaborated with the Tucson Museum of Art. 

“There is no shortage of content, and there is always flexibility to partner with people,” Stratford said.

The festival had been held over a long weekend in the fall, but Stratford said spreading it out over more weekends allows people to have options. Stratford said he selected this year’s lineup largely because of the films’ ties to Tucson.

“As a film director, I’m always looking at the stories and seeing what works, highlighting the best stories and connecting the audience with the film,” Stratford said. “It’s never going to be a Tom Cruise movie; it could be new filmmakers or established filmmakers, but it is the best stories we could find and share.” 

Stratford said the festival could move to its permanent home at the historic Teatro Carmen in 2027 when the 300-seat venue at 380 S. Meyer Ave. downtown is expected to reopen.

Teatro Carmen is the second major Tucson theater that Stratford’s company, Stratford Art Works, has been involved in historically renovating. Stratford spearheaded the renovation of Fox Tucson Theatre, 17 W. Congress St., which started in 1999 and took six years. The theater reopened in late 2005 after being closed for 25 years. 

Film Fest Tucson is a collaboration with Arizona Arts Live, the arts presenting arm of the University of Arizona.

• The festival opens Feb. 22 with “Man on the Run: Paul McCartney,” a film that looks at his life, including years spent with his late wife Linda in their northeast Tucson home in the late 1970s. The film, making its Tucson debut, was directed by Morgan Neville and includes never-before-seen archives and interviews.
• “Cabali and the Tiki Mug Obsession,” to be screened on March 29, will get its first public screening since it premiered at the prestigious Newport Beach Film Festival last October. 

The documentary, directed by Tucson filmmaker Josh Dragotta, follows the story of Tucson restaurant/bar owner Doug “Fini” Finical over three years as he builds an homage to tiki. Finical has a collection of more than 1,000 tiki mugs going back 30 years. Many of them are now displayed in Cabili, the speakeasy he built behind his Oro Valley restaurant, The Landing.

Dragotta’s documentary also traced the history of tiki culture. 

“It took 3½ years for the bar to be made, which allowed me to really dig deep and explore the tiki subculture,” Dragotta said. 

Dragotta hopes that the Arizona tiki subculture will bring a large audience.

 “I’m hoping that the tiki folks come out and represent,” Dragotta said. 

• The festival wraps up on  April 26 with directors Tyler Measom and Craig A. Williams’ documentary “If These Walls Could Rock,” which tells the stories of wild parties, rock stars, and the secrets they kept at LA’s Sunset Marquis Hotel in the 1970s-80s. 

Films will be shown at 6 p.m. in the Marroney Theater, 1025 N. Olive Road on the University of Arizona campus. Tickets ($24.50, $14.50 for students) are available through ticketmaster.com.

Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.