5th Annual Ag & Art Film Festival, Vacaville

The Ag & Art Film Festival celebrates agriculture and art through storytelling & cinema.

The Ag & Art Film Festival was started in 2019 by filmmaker and small farm advocate, Lisa Murray. As one of the founders and Vice President of the Pleasants Valley Agriculture Association, Lisa helped the farmers in Vacaville by creating a marketing presence and by helping organize a few  local events for the community like PVAA’s Open Farm Days.

During the formation of “VACA (Vacaville Arts & Cultural Alliance) Arts Week”, lead by Visit Vacaville, Lisa realized that film wasn’t represented in the arts week and so the Ag & Art Film Festival was born. The first year the festival was held at DeVille Theatre (now “Journey Downtown”) located on Main Street in Downtown Vacaville. The second year was the year of Covid and the horrific LNU Fire. Lisa pivoted the festival to be all outdoors at farms, ranches and wineries and when 80% of her outdoor locations were directly affected by the LNU fire, she pivoted again to new outdoor locations and the festival marched onward. Not only did the festival make it through that year, the festival raised money for some of the local farmers who were affected by the fire. The third year, the festival remained outdoors as Covid variants loomed in the air.

The festival’s 4th year in 2022, the festival moved back indoors at what is now Journey Downtown (formerly “DeVille Theatre”). We added a “Festival Tent” located in the Journey Downtown courtyard which served as our festival headquarters where guests could pick up a program, purchase tickets, buy a t-shirt, and ask us questions. It was a great addition to the festival! It was a fun place were our volunteers and festival staff got to connect with the public, the festival-goers, and the filmmakers a little more.

In our 5th year we will be at Journey Downtown again, and we are very excited about that.  More info will be released in the months leading up to the festival so sign up for our email list to be alerted of any festival news.

Lisa has over 15 years experience in the film & music industries working at Paramount Pictures – working the Dreamworks distribution team and with Dreamworks Animation, Amblin Entertainment, MTV Films, LucasFilm, Bad Robot Productions, Red Hour Films, Cruise/Wagner Productions – and in International Publicity at Warner Bros. Pictures. She is an independent filmmaker and co-owns a music-production company with her long-time business & life partner, multi-platinum songwriter/producer, Dapo Torimiro.

In 2017, Lisa moved from Los Angeles to Northern California to heal from personal loss. While there, Lisa got involved with helping local farmers with their marketing and getting organized. From the regular interaction with the farmers, Lisa was drawn into wanting to help them even further. She was one of the founding members of the Pleasants Valley Agriculture Association (PVAA) – a collection of local farms in Vacaville, CA.

Her interest in helping save small farms grew out of that time and shortly after the beginning of PVAA, Lisa started the Ag & Art Film Festival in 2019. Her tenacity and drive pushed the festival through its second and third years during the pandemic as she pivoted the festival in 2020 & 2021 to be an outdoor festival, screening films at farms, ranches & wineries.

In 2022, Lisa expanded the “ag & art” brand when she launched the Ag & Art Magazine in May. The magazine supports and celebrates local farmers and local artists by listing their events for free.