Third annual GI Film Festival San Diego opens Wednesday

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) — The third annual GI Film Festival San Diego is scheduled to open Wednesday with a screening of a film on the legacy of the Vietnam War.

The festival will show 33 films total through Sunday at various venues, including two world premieres and eight West Coast premieres. Filmmaker appearances and panel discussions are also scheduled.

Opening night will include a West Coast premiere screening of "The 2 Sides Project,” which tells of a journey of six U.S. sons and daughters to Vietnam to see where their fathers died, and to meet their Vietnamese counterparts who also lost their fathers to war. Festival organizers said the fathers of two film subjects were stationed at Camp Pendleton before they deployed to Vietnam.

Director Anthony Istrico and five of the six U.S. subjects are scheduled to attend opening night, at 7 p.m. at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park.

The festival will continue Thursday at the Regal Carlsbad 12, Friday with a "Family Night” aboard the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum in downtown San Diego, and over the weekend at the AMC Mission Valley 20.

An encore screening of "The 2 Sides Project” is scheduled for Sunday.