Busboy-turned-director returns to Sonoma County for Wine Country Film Festival screening

Los Angeles director Wayne Mitchell naturally looks forward to screening his first feature film, “Soledad,” during this week’s 29th annual Wine County Film Festival, but he’s especially excited about the venue.

The film will be shown at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17, at the Kenwood Restaurant on Highway 12, a place that Mitchell knows very well.

“I worked as a busboy at the Kenwood Restaurant 20 years ago, during my second year at Santa Rosa Junior College,” Mitchell said. “It’s interesting to me to go full circle. It was my first experience with fine dining, and it was across the street from Kunde Winery, so I would have lunch outside and look at the winery. Since then, I’ve worked as a waiter and a bartender.”

Mitchell, 41, lived in Sonoma County from ages 12 to 21, graduated from Piner High School and participated in the Teens Teaching Through Theater (4T) program. He attended the junior college in Santa Rosa before going on to San Francisco State University, where he graduated in 1998 with degrees in cinema, commications and speech.

Mitchell moved to Los Angeles after that, and like anyone pursing a career in film, Mitchell needed side jobs to get by, but he never gave up and now works steadily as a voice actor, providing background voices for television shows. He also has appeared as an actor on TV in “Las Vegas” and “Boston Legal,” and in the films “Yard Sale The Movie” in 2005, and the short film “Sons of a Guns” in 2007.

Two years ago, Mitchell and his friend, Eduardo Maytorena, teamed up as screenwriters and co-directors of their own 84-minute feature film, “Soledad,” the story a burly, worldy limousine driver chauferring a young woman and her obnoxious date on prom night.

The film was shot in early 2014 in Los Angeles over 14 nights and three days, and stars another friend of Mitchell’s, actor Jesse Celedon, as the limo driver. The three friends raised over $100,000 to finance the project together, with support from Los Angeles businessman Douglas Bravo.

“Here we are now with a finished film, and it’s all paid for,” he said.

Admission costs $12.50 for Thursday’s showing in Kenwood. “Soledad” also will be screened at 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 19, at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco as part of the San Francisco Latino Film Festival.

The Wine Country Film Festival continues at several Sonoma County venues through Monday, Sept. 21. For more information: wcff.us.

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @danarts.