The Los Angeles Film Festival packs up its tent today. Prior to the closing night gala the organization announced this year’s winners in the juried narrative and documentary categories as well as the audience awards in those categories. The officially-sanctioned prizes come with a $10,000 cash prize, which is nice but behind the times and monetary awards given at other festivals.

Drum roll, please.

In the narrative category the Latvian production Mother, I Love You was triumphant. It premiered at Berlin where it received a special jury award, and tells the tale of a young boy caught between family and friends and confronting right and wrong for the first time. The nonfiction winner was Code Black, an examination of a Los Angeles emergency room as it transitions to a new physical facility and confronts new procedures and bureaucracies. The audience chose Short Term 12, the saga of workers and residents in a child care facility that was also a winner at SXSW.  The audience also applauded the documentary portrait American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, on the social activist.

Overall the event had one of its strongest lineups in years. Personally, the desire was there to attend more screenings but the reality of logistics continue to make LAFF perhaps the most uninviting film event on the local calendar. It ought to be more accessible by dint of the new Metro train lines… but it isn’t.

The parking situation, valet options excluded, is a nightmare. On one particular horrific evening I ran into one of the festival organizers on my way into the complex. Naturally, I expressed my frustration about the parking situation. It was evident I was not the first to voice such a complaint. Nonetheless he shrugged it off as if it were a minor concern in an otherwise smoothly operating machine.

He added a note that there was an AEG concert that evening that was slowing down the process as if that were an anomaly. The film I was rushing to see was delayed a half-hour as a result–the sort of glitch that can through off the schedule for the rest of the day. Despite this seemingly impossible-to-overcome situation I have to tip my hat to the staff–both the Regal employees and  event volunteers. They remained coolheaded, cooperative and unswervingly polite. That says a great deal about selection and training.

All this might not be so painful were there someplace to hang out between screenings, as I described in my earlier dispatch. There is a press and guest area located on the top level of the parking lot … but it’s still the top floor of a parking lot and that cannot be disguised by the insertion of a few potted plants. It’s otherwise sterile and uninviting.

The previous venue in Westwood was comparatively idyllic by comparison. But that area has seen a number of potential venues shuttered in the past three years and couldn’t sustain this event unless it had 100% cooperation from the existing screens.One can assume Hollywood is not an option as it’s been staked out by the AFI Fest and that not many multiplexes such as the Landmark are willing to forsake six screens during the torrid summer movie season. That leaves only 3rd Street and its environs in Santa Monica as a possible alternative. This scribe ain’t holding his breath.

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