March 4, 2025 – The haunting, wind-swept grandeur of the Salinas Valley has inspired many beyond Steinbeck. Every day, its sweeping, quiet majesty entrances those who pause to take it in. Against this storied landscape that supports and enriches so many lives, dreams are imagined, and reality flirts with imagination as stories unfold.
One of those “dream state meets reality” stories plays out in the documentary The Long Valley which will be featured during the 13th annual Watsonville Film Festival this week at various venues in Watsonville and Santa Cruz. FilmSched
The film, starring the haunting cradle of land between the Santa Lucia and the Gabilan ranges, was screened earlier this year at Sundance, arguably the highest honor for a small budget production. It basically gives a film the notoriety needed to get on film festival schedules around the country. The Long Valley will also be showing at the South By Southwest film festival in Austin, March 7—15. sxswfilmfest
Filmmaker, Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck, who grew up in Davis, and his talented friend and fellow filmmaker Robert Machoian—a King City native—produced and directed the film. Both are CSUMB graduates, who met while studying in the Cinematic Arts & Technology department. They both now teach filmmaking: Ojeda-Beck at Sacramento State and Machoian at BYU in Utah.
The two have been making films together for well over a decade. This is the second of their works that treats the landscape as the muse to communicate emotion. The first, shot in Nebraska in 2021—2022, is called The Last Days of August. Ojeda-Beck says has the feel of Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider.
“We literally drove through Nebraska, filming small towns out of a van in which we slept,” says Ojeda-Beck. He credits Minneapolis-based photographer Alex Soth, who has written many books on photography, for his inspiration to use a series of stunning images, much like a photo album, to create the story framework. The Last Days of August became a Vimeo pick, and won Grand Jury Honorable Mention for Best Short Film at the Dallas International Film Festival in 2022. View the film here
For their second film, The Long Valley, they decided to focus on the Valley that had long been their backyard. “It was born out of wanting to make a film about the Salinas Valley with no preconceived notions of what it would be about,” explains Ojeda-Beck, who fell in love with film in high school, and cannot imagine his life without it.
“We captured what caught our eyes and interviewed people along the way. We were looking to find a connection between what we observed and the stories people communicated with us.”
He admits that this was kind of a reverse process in filmmaking: rather than forcing a story onto a place, they arrived and experienced the coincidences that drove the film. While that approach was a rewarding way to work, it was far harder to get the actual people stories.
Interviewees would happily agree to be part of it, but would shy away when the time came to actually film. Ojeda-Beck says he completely understands.
“We thought we knew some people who would be good in the film,” says Ojeda-Beck. “They were generous and talkative, but they got nervous when we started filming. It’s a normal response, but a lot of people canceled their interviews.”
So, they turned their cameras on the Valley.
“We love River Road,” says Ojeda-Beck. “It is so pretty. We would drive there all the time as undergrads. So we drove it again and filmed what caught our eye.” While they were excited about what they were filming, they still lacked interviews. Finally, someone in King City agreed to speak.
“One of the things he said that stood out was, ‘Time is like the wind: you can’t see it, but you can feel it,’” Ojeda-Beck relates. “I began to realize we were filming the wind. Things that might seem banal suddenly became moving.”
Turning to former CSUMB students for help in securing interview subjects proved fruitful, and by summer they were able to film the people you see on screen in the documentary.
“Time and regret were some of the themes that kept coming up,” says Ojeda-Beck. “Our inability to accept reality and find room to dream about the alternatives. Literally, finding the space to dream.”
Capturing the landscape meant focusing on the fundamentals of agriculture, which he knew would be another overarching theme. “I knew I wanted to touch on field work which brings up its own concerns. Stories about immigration are woven deeply into the fabric of the Valley.”
Ojeda-Beck admits that filmmaking is a difficult medium to figure out, and it can be an awful lot to learn, even beyond the technology involved. It encompasses writing, filming, directing and editing.
“One of the hardest parts is post production,” he says. “It makes it harder to edit when you shoot without intention. We were going for a photo book aesthetic. This allows a great amount of freedom in terms of content and finding connections. Discovery takes a while to make the connections that give it a poetic feel. Ultimately, we wanted a film that felt more like a poem.”
Having The Long Valley, a 433 Pictures Production, chosen to screen at the Sundance Film Festival, was a tremendous honor. “There were over 11,000 submissions to Sundance this year,” explains Ojeda-Beck. “The numbers are not in your favor!” Fortunately, theirs was one of 57 chosen for screening.
He says that the screeners take their viewership duties extremely seriously. “It’s not an enviable task to watch all 11,000 films, but they really do pay attention. I’ve had some of them tell me what they remembered about my films, even ones that didn’t make the cut.”
Ojeda-Beck has entered twelve times and been accepted four times, so he’s doing remarkably well. “It’s very affirming to make something that comes out the way I wanted it to,” he says. “Learning to manifest is very rewarding, but it requires dedication.”
He credits all those who worked on the film, including associate producers Ana Sanchez and Saul Cardenas, CSUMB alums, and Chris Carpenter, who teaches at the Cinematic Arts & Technology department at CSUMB. All were extremely helpful in recruiting the people who appear in the film. Carpenter also serves as a Board Director for the Monterey County Film Commission. LiliArlen Gomez, a recent CSUMB graduate, is credited as assistant camera and has begun working as an administrative associate at the Monterey County Film Commission.
Ojeda-Beck will be present at some of the screenings in Watsonville before he heads off to Austin for South By Southwest. And then he will be back at school in Sacramento, teaching and mentoring the 80 students with whom he is currently working.
While Ojeda-Beck admits it’s a tremendous honor to have a film be selected for screening at a top-notch festival, he cautions that it is critical to savor each win, as long periods of rejection will most assuredly follow.
He should know. When he was only 21, his film Charlie and The Rabbit, one he made with Machoian during the 2008 financial crisis, was selected to screen at Sundance. “I was one of the youngest people there,” says Ojeda-Beck. “I figured I’d be back there every year. But it was another decade before I came back.”
He especially treasured the January 2025 appearance, as the Sundance Film Festival will be moving to a new venue next year.
Ojeda-Beck says he tells his students to be grateful for the nods. “But,” he says, “You can’t allow that to define success for you: don’t let it get to you. The success comes from yourself. You hold on to that feeling for the next few years to keep you motivated. Good things happen when you can make a career that lasts decades.”
The Long Valley was completed in November 2024 and blends Spanish dialogue with English subtitles. Carpenter, with whom Ojeda-Beck and Machoian collaborated on the film says, “This project is a love letter to the resilience and dreams of the people who make this region so extraordinary.”
Ojeda-Beck says, “The place itself is the story. We wanted to do the Salinas Valley justice. It does not represent the entirety of the Valley, but I hope it gives an idea.”
Showings of The Long Valley:
Thu, Mar 6th, 6:00 PM @ CineLux Green Valley Cinema
Sun, Mar 9th, 4:00 PM @ The 418 Project
Fri, Mar 14th, 6:00 PM @ Maya Cinemas
Details on the 13th Annual Watsonville Film Festival: WatsonvilleFilmFest
About the author
Laura Ness is a longtime wine journalist, columnist and judge who contributes regularly to Edible Monterey Bay, Spirited, WineOh.Tv, Los Gatos Magazine and Wine Industry Network, and a variety of consumer publications. Her passion is telling stories about the intriguing characters who inhabit the fascinating world of wine and food.
