By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com

LAFF Report 2016

Posted Saturday, June 4th, 2016 - Comments Off on LAFF Report 2016
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The Los Angeles Film Festival falls under the umbrella of Film Independent, its schedule filled with films by unheralded filmmakers, but that often star well-known faces in calling-card productions. The event has evolved from an old-style film showcase into a schedule with little notice of studio releases, foreign films or circuit auteurs.

Since the demise of Westwood as a moviehouse oasis, Los Angeles-based movie events have few choices of location. Staples Center and LA Live enticed the festival to the downtown Regal Cinemas in 2010, as well as an unsuccessful venue for the Spirit Awards, which sent them back to the big tent on the beach in Santa Monica. For 2016, the Arclight Culver City has 12 screens, and during the weekend three are dedicated to the festival while as many as six offer LAFF programs on weekdays.

My first taste of LAFF 2016 was Friday and signs were positive. The pulse of the neighborhood quickened without heightening the anxiety level. An amiable and engaged quality circled the hospitality area, and folks waiting in line to see the evening shows sported smiles. My plan was to see The Hollars, a family saga starring and directed by John Krasinski. There was another film I’d hope to catch but its publicist informed me earlier in the day that it was sold out and I’d have to see it at the press-industry screening on Monday.

Shortly after finding the appropriate queue the person in front of me kindly told me that I’d need a hard ticket and pointed me to a table where they were being handed out. I hopped over, gave my name and showed my press pass. However, they couldn’t find my name and hadn’t initially heard me when I mentioned I was “with the press.” It turned out this was a table dedicated to Film Independent members and the distributors thought the press table was somewhere off to the left.

In fact there didn’t appear to a press table or representative. And there were a lot of people that “didn’t know.” Eventually someone with seeming authority told me The Hollars was a “members only” screening and the press seats had been filled.

Not to overly indulge in sour grapes but nowhere in the communications from the press office or in the daily emails of screenings was there any indication that members screenings precluded the press. A subsequent check of email did uncover a note sent at 8:02 p.m. apologized that press passes wouldn’t apply to that 8:45 p.m. screening.

I’m headed back to LAFF shortly hopeful that its feel-good ambience will spill over to the functionaries.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

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~ David Simon