When you export something to the world, something a little weird and a little magical and a little subjective and a product people get passionate about, you can teeter on pins-and-needles, a bit, when the world comes to enjoy that very thing in your own home.
Los Angeles doesn't have a trademark on the film business, but as long as the term "Hollywood" is shorthand for the cinema-making center of the universe, we can pretty much say we own the industry in the emotional, spiritual, and heart-capturing sense.
Which makes LA Film Festival the homegrown hometown party for the biggest thing this city is known for. The huge party, which is produced by Film Independent, is not small beans, though, lest the "homegrown hometown" part suggest otherwise; the cineparty, which jams through eight busy downtown days, is about spotlighting artworks from around the globe, flicks with a powerful or iconoclastic or singular or strange vision.
Dates? The films flow from June 10 through 17.
The opening night film is "Grandma," starring Lily Tomlin is the Opening Night picture, while the much-buzzed-about "Dope" and "Inside Out" join the pre-festival screenings. "The Overnight" with Taylor Schilling, the mountain-big documentary "A New High," and "It's Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong," a participant in the U.S. Fiction Competition, are on the cinema slate.
Plus the talked-about freebies: "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" gets a gratis screening at Union Station, and cast members and fans come together at Figat7th to celebrate the 15th anniversary of "Love and Basketball."
And the aforementioned cinema slate? It's large-ish, lovers of movie magic: Some "74 feature films, 60 short films, and over 50 new media works representing 35 countries" shall unspool, plus panels, parties, red-carpet-y haps, and all sorts of starry doings.
The Scene
Want to find new things to do in Los Angeles? The Scene's lifestyle stories have you covered. Here's your go-to source on where the fun is across SoCal and for the weekend.
Yep, that sounds pretty homespun for Hollywood, now, and probably forever, the place synonymous with flickering images thrown on a large surface hung before a rapt audience.
