{"id":3065,"date":"2025-03-01T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T09:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/?p=3065"},"modified":"2025-03-01T09:00:26","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T09:00:26","slug":"502-gavin-gaitan-down-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/?p=3065","title":{"rendered":"502. Gavin Gaitan \u201cDown Town\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A beautiful March Monday to you all!<\/p>\n<p>What I am about to type is the absolute truth. The first time I watched \u201cDown Town,\u201d the crime-comedy-adventure feature film from writer director Gavin Gaitan, \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I said out loud, alone in front of the TV, \u201cHoly f***ing sh*t.\u201d And I probably said it three to four times in a row, because Gavin\u2019s film simply blew me away. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I wasn\u2019t alone! The selection jury for the Sherman Oaks Film Festival gave \u201cDown Town\u201d the Best In Fest award!<br \/>\nIn fact, at SOFF 2024, Gavin\u2019s film took home four awards:<br \/>\nBest in Fest &#8211; Feature Film<br \/>\nGrand Jury Award &#8211; Best Feature Film &#8211; Comedy<br \/>\nGrand Jury Award &#8211; Best Director &#8211; Feature Film &#8211; Gavin Gaitan<br \/>\nGrand Jury Award &#8211; Best Screenplay &#8211; Feature Film &#8211; Gavin Gaitan<\/p>\n<p>By the way, I was extra excited that Gavin was among the first of the SOFF 2024 alumni to jump onto the podcast. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I was moderating the Q&amp;A\u2019s in theater 7 when \u201cDown Town\u201d was playing in theater 8, so that I was not able to moderate Gavin\u2019s Q&amp;A and tell him all of the things that I admire about his film.<br \/>\nThat\u2019s what I love about the Discover Indie Film podcast; it gives me a second chance to have a conversation the filmmakers whose Q&amp;A\u2019s I did not get to moderate.<br \/>\nIf you want to follow Gavin\u2019s feature film on Instagram, he\u2019s @downtownmovie <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3386 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/discoverindiefilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Gavin_Int-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><br \/>\n(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/downtownmovie\/\">https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/downtownmovie\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _<\/p>\n<p>Discover Indie Film<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/discoverindiefilm.com\">Website<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/difwins\/\">Instagram<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/difwins\">Facebook<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/difwins.bsky.social\">BlueSky<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The INDIE Channel<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/watchtvhi.com\">The INDIE Channel Website<\/a> \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/theindiechanneltv\/\">Instagram<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theindiechanneltv\">Facebook<\/a> \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@theindiechanneltv\">TikTok<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source: Discover Film<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A beautiful March Monday to you all! What I am about to type is the absolute truth. The first time I watched \u201cDown Town,\u201d the crime-comedy-adventure feature film from writer director Gavin Gaitan, \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/?p=3065\" class=\"read-more\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;502. Gavin Gaitan \u201cDown Town\u201d&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcasts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffhoward.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}