FESTIVAL ROUNDUP



 

Los Angeles Independent Film Festival

If 1997 heralded the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival as a serious presence on the festival scene, then this past spring’s edition accelerated a meteoric rise. The LAIFF has seen its audience double in size annually since its inception four years ago; last year’s 13,000 swelled to over 21,000 in 1998, and all this in the backyard of an industry notorious for leaving town to attend festivals. "There’s this incredible, vibrant heartbeat of interest here in L.A. for independent film," explains programming director Thomas Ethan Harris, who received over 1,200 submissions for the festival’s 26 feature slots (only two of which were documentaries) and 31 accompanying shorts. "I was completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of interest in films with no big stars," he added when discussing the many shows that sold out even before the festival began. "Whether it was a $15,000 feature or a multi-million dollar film, I was prepared for empty seats — and there weren’t any."

Audience members voted on their favorite films, awarding best feature to Scott Ziehl’s Broken Vessels, a riveting cautionary tale about junkie paramedics in L.A., and best director went to Rory Kelly for his L.A.-based twentysomething romance, the ensemble piece Some Girls, starring Juliette Lewis and Michael Rappaport. Best writer went to Rocky Collins for Pants on Fire, while the best short prize went to ‘Mad’ Boy, I’ll Blow Your Blues Away — Be Mine from Adam Collis. Among the 17 world premieres were Richard Sears’ pothead comedy Bongwater, Jon Reiss’ dark revenge piece about unwanted house guests, Cleopatra’s Second Husband; Bennett Miller’s documentary The Cruise, chronicling a hyper-articulate New-York bus-tour guide, and Nick Davis’ fin-de-siecle soiree flick 1999. Opening night was christened with Susanna Styron’s debut film Shadrach, based on her father William Styron’s short story and starring Harvey Keitel and Andie MacDowell.

Over 60% of the films selected for last year’s LAIFF were picked up by distributors, so it was no surprise this year to see acquisitions executives like Sony Pictures Classics’ Dylan Leiner and Mark Gill, president of Miramax’s West Coast office, in attendance throughout. "This year the films are better – in terms of production value, producers, and even sales agents," Leiner said, explaining LAIFF’s attraction for a New York executive like himself. Some would even argue that the quality was beginning to give Sundance a run for its money. "In terms of independents, you can see a definite rival to Sundance," said Marcus Hu, co-president of the Santa Monica-based Strand Releasing who since last year has considered attendance at the Festival to be mandatory. "It’s refreshing to see a marketplace for independent films in L.A."

The LAIFF also provided public screenings of somewhat uncommercial films, such as Abel Ferrara’s latest depravity-and-redemption parable The Blackout, which debuted at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival and still has yet to see a stateside release. Even though Trimark paid for domestic distribution rights, the company has been sitting on the movie ever since. "They have a remarkable ability to buy a film and bury it," heckled Ferrara at a post-screening Q&A during which the manic director strutted the aisles while answering questions and explaining how he tried, unsuccessfully, to re-acquire the rights to his own movie. One, a hard-sell film about the relationship between an ex-convict and a failed minor-league baseball player who once were childhood best friends, was all the rage at Sundance this year, but has yet to find a distributor. "I’ve been involved with 500 films in 20 years as a publicist," said Mickey Cottrell, one of the film’s executive producers. "This is the first movie where I’ve had unanimously favorable critical reviews — much of it over the moon — and all of the major distributors have passed."

Running only five days, with just two of those days having screenings that started in the morning, the LAIFF’s schedule was chock-a-block with simultaneous triple features, making it frustratingly impossible for even the most dedicated festivalgoer to actually see every one of the movies. And even the most careful plans were rendered moot by the 15-20 minute starting delays for almost every selection. Robert Faust, founder and LAIFF festival director, is already planning an expanded program for 1999: "The plan isn’t to have more films, but to accommodate those chosen," he explained with an eye towards making the LAIFF a week-long affair. "I want people to enjoy the process."

Adding considerable logistical relief was the festival’s convenient Sunset Boulevard location at the Director’s Guild of America, the first year that the Guild hosted screenings, seminars and panels under the same roof, rather the splitting them as in years past between the facilities at Raleigh Studios and Paramount. Using the DGA as its base also allowed the LAIFF to include nearby venues, like the Harmony Gold Theater, the Laemmle Sunset Five, and even the comic stand-up shrine The Laugh Factory to show screenings and hold seminars.

Among the 14 special seminars, ranging from the legal aspects of indie filmmaking to the post-production process demystified, was a spotlight on directing, which gathered filmmakers Bryan Singer and Allison Anders to discuss their craft and how they got their first films off the ground. Anders used her debut, Border Radio, as a perfect example of the independent film industry’s volatility. "None of the companies that financed the movie in 1987 are still around!" Included in Singer’s advice to directors was the necessity of a good location manager, citing his last film The Usual Suspects as a perfect example of how a keen eye in the San Diego harbor led them to change the film’s climactic set piece from a yacht to a huge mine-sweeper tanker: "It didn’t cost any more — the boat was cheap to rent and it made you think that you were watching a bigger movie."

The seminar on special effects for low-budget movies drove home the extent to which young, computer-savvy filmmakers can cut corners without compromising quality — sometimes in surprising ways and for relatively mundane reasons. Stu Maschwitz, a visual effects artist at Industrial Light and Magic, creates effects for "things I wouldn’t have money or permits to do. For me," he elaborated, "a crane shot is now a post effect."



 
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© 2005 Filmmaker Magazine