Veronica Loren makes her acting debut starring in the independent film, August Evening. This meditative film on family and life-after-loss premiered at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival, where it won the $50,000 Target Filmmaker Award as well as the Best Ensemble Acting Award.
Veronica says on the film’s immediate reception, “Boom, people loved us,” which she found a little overwhelming, but exciting and encouraging. “Never in a million years, I mean I knew this movie was a good movie, I just never knew it was going to get the type of response it did. I didn’t know that people would actually think that I was great at acting because it was really something I stumbled upon. And I just want to polish it up and do something with that.”
August Evening is touring the festival circuit and has screened at film festivals in Mill Valley, Woodstock, San Francisco, and Santa Fe. The film’s theatrical release will occur in 2008. August Evening was recently nominated for two 2008 Spirit awards, Best Film (under $500k) and Best Actor for Veronica’s co-star Pedro Castaneda.
Meanwhile Veronica is adjusting to her sudden and lauded arrival on the Hollywood stage. Veronica originally moved to LA to pursue a singing career, but soon grew disenchanted by the “sketchy” underbelly of the music industry and on a whim took up a friend’s suggestion that she go to an audition for August Evening. She quickly pieced together a resume, dug up a miscellaneous photo, and landed the lead role of Lupe, a young Mexican-born widow living with her father-in-law.
The film shot on-location, mainly took place in Gonzales, a timeless frontier town that proudly and generously donated their cooking skills to keep the film crew fed. Film students from the University of Texas-Austin also volunteered and the cast and crew, “all just worked together like a family.” During the filming Veronica learned on the fly about acting and film production and, “had the best time ever, it was the best…it was just a blessing the way it all went down.”
Veronica feels fortunate that she had this opportunity and now feels ready to again make her way in the world of Hollywood. As she says, “It’s serious business now. It’s big time,” but Veronica is optimistic and committing herself to the logistical process of officially becoming an actress and is excited to find and start working on her next project.
August Evening: https://www.augustevening.com
