SAN DIEGO, CA.- ­In May 1968, Andy Warhol filmed San Diego Surf on the shores of La Jolla. It was only partially edited and never released--until now. MCASD La Jolla will host the West Coast premier of the film on Saturday, March 16 at 5:30 PM.

The film was recently released by The Andy Warhol Museum, and has only been shown at one other venue. It was screened at The Museum of Modern Art in New York in October 2012 and again last week (January 23-28).

Guests who attend the West Coast premier at MCASD are also invited to a pre-screening happy hour beginning at 4:30 PM, which will include light snacks and a no-host bar as well as the opportunity to view archival footage of Warhol and Paul Morrissey making the film. This never-before-seen footage was filmed by La Jollan Lee Pratt.

Warhol is widely regarded as one of the most important artists of the second half of the 20th century, and he brought the vision of a successful artist to his filmmaking activities. He produced more than 4,000 reels of film between 1963 and 1971, when the works were withdrawn from circulation. In the early 1980s a project began to preserve and re-release the films, with support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, Inc. In 1997, The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh received the copyright to this material as a gift from The Andy Warhol Foundation. Of great interest even in his lifetime, Warhol's films have attracted overwhelming public and scholarly attention since they have become newly available. Their wide-ranging influence can be seen in the work of contemporary artists, as well as numerous exhibitions and publications.

San Diego Surf was filmed on the shores of La Jolla in May 1968. Shot in color on 16mm with two cameras manned by Warhol and collaborator Paul Morrissey, the film features Factory superstars Viva, Taylor Mead, Louis Waldon, Joe Dallesandro, Tom Hompertz, Ingrid Superstar, Eric Emerson, Nawana Davis, and others. Its loose narrative concerns an unhappily married couple (Taylor Mead and Viva) that rent their beach house to a group of surfers. After it was filmed, the work was only partially edited and never released. In 1995-96, The Andy Warhol Foundation commissioned Morrissey, under the supervision of Foundation curator Dara Meyers-Kingsley, to complete the editing based on existing notes and the rough cut.

One of the last films in which Warhol had direct involvement, San Diego Surf was the first time Warhol had made a movie in California since the early Tarzan and Jane Regained, Sort Of ... in 1963. The month after San Diego Surf filming was completed, Warhol was critically wounded by Valerie Solonas, who shot the artist in the stomach, virtually ending his work behind the movie camera. The film, which is only now being seen publicly, is released by The Warhol, who holds all the copyrights to the work.