Overview L.A. Times HQ at the Newport Beach Film Festival is the Times' traveling festival studio set up for Orange County's film week: a closed set where filmmakers and talent in town for the festival sit for photo and video sessions with the paper. The Times is one of the festival's premiere partners, beside Cadillac, UCI Health, Fashion Island and the City of Newport Beach. Gregg Schwenk started the festival in 1999, and its 2025 edition, the 26th, screened more than 100 features and 250 shorts from 32 countries over eight days in October. On site The festival runs out of Newport Beach's own rooms: it opened in 2025 at Regal Edwards Big Newport with Blue Moon, starring Ethan Hawke, and closed at the Lido Theater with Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. Centerpiece slots went to Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Nouvelle Vague and Hedda. Around the screenings run opening galas, after-parties, a Festival Honors night at Balboa Bay Resort and events with Fashion Island and StyleWeekOC, including a 2025 after-party at Fashion Island with tastings and cocktails. Audience The festival describes itself as one of the largest luxury lifestyle film festivals in the United States, and its own director speaks of a loyal Orange County audience. Brand presence The Times pitches its HQ studios as a place where talent meets a sponsor's brand in person, in an informal, gifting-suite setting, with the content shot there running across the paper's video, podcast and editorial channels. Sponsors can take the Newport Beach studio alone or the full series, which also runs at Sundance, TIFF and Cannes.