By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com
Confessions of a Film Festival Junkie: LAFF 2015
The Los Angeles Film Festival opened Wednesday with the premiere of Grandma, a cross-generational day trip with Lily Tomlin and Julia Garner.
LAFF, for the uninitiated, is a “discovery” festival. Not a glitzy affair like Cannes or Toronto, or what one might anticipate from the movie capital of the world, it’s largely fueled by first and second works by filmmakers yet to acquire the cachet that secures invites to the A-list parties.
Both the L.A. Film Fest and the fall-dated AFI Fest (both targeted at a wide range of humanity) have learned to play the game as it exists in Tinseltown. That is program the best possible show under the circumstance and through developed relationships and suasion secure a couple of high profile studio movies to give the event the splash that ensures media attention.
It’s been a rough year for the LAFFers in respect to the latter element. Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out was screened the day before the official start as part of a focus on animation with director Pete Docter. On Sunday filmmaker Jonathan Demme will receive a tribute alongside his latest film Ricki and the Flash with Meryl Streep as an aging rock star coping with the family she abandoned for the road. And one can only assume that the last-minute announcement that the closing night “movie” would be a live read of Cameron Crowe’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High under the direction of Eli Roth was a fallback for something that didn’t pan out.
The festival is also hampered by timing in respect to securing vaunted foreign films that have either already popped up at Cannes or Berlin or are scheduled for fall premieres at Toronto and Venice.
It sounds like a harvest of sour grapes and that’s not at all the intention. The Los Angeles Film Festival – which come under the umbrella of Film Independent – took a look at a festival topographical map and considered the needs of its core membership and made some sage decisions. The program is chock-a-block with films by members and other indies. Ideally there ought to be a prize somewhere in this box of crackerjack. Despite the fact that many of these movies failed to make the Sundance cut (no one is infallible) the sheer volume demands that a couple of hitherto unknown gems will emerge.
It’s the equivalent of panning for gold. I’ve only seen a handful of the 74 features programmed and while they’re fest-worthy, I’ve yet to hit the motherlode. It’s really no different or rewarding than trolling through the general release schedule or trolling a large multiplex.
What may well be the festival’s greatest challenge is creating the environment of discovery that will make the Los Angeles Film Festival the movie event the city needs. It had that sense of community when it was located in Westwood but as screens shuttered there was unable to sustain the physical demands of the program regrettably. And while Downtown and the Staples Center environs is a growing destination area; situating your guest area on the roof of a parking lot falls short of creating a warm, inviting and casual breeding ground where one can expect the unexpected to occur.