FESTIVAL ROUNDUP



 
 

The AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival

"Why isn't there a world-class film festival in the film capital of the world?" demanded Jon Fitzgerald, director of the 1997 American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival. "I think with the response we're getting so far this year, everybody feels like it's starting to happen." Not since Gary Essert created Filmex in the early '70s has Los Angeles been home to a major film festival with a young, idealistic director like Fitzgerald, who this past April was hired away from Slamdance, the festival he co-founded, to breathe new life into the AFI Fest.

Having risen from the ashes of Filmex's demise in 1986, the festival is continuing a renaissance of its own after nearly a decade of nomadic existence. After moving from venue to venue, the festival settled two years ago into both Hollywood and Santa Monica, splitting screen time among the GCC Hollywood Galaxy, Mann's Chinese Theater, and Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex.

This year, Fitzgerald consciously scaled back the festival to ten days and added a competitive section as well as new categories like World Cinema, Documentary, Latin American Sidebar, and New Visions, created specifically to champion American independent films. The result was a 30% increase in attendance from last year, with one-third of its screenings sold out.

Those ticket sales included no less than ten films receiving their U.S. premieres, including opening night fave Swept from the Sea by director Beeban Kidron; Mike van Diem's 1920s-set historical Dutch drama Character, which won the Grand Jury Prize (chosen by this year's judges Allison Anders, Charles Burnett and Nick Cassavetes); Zhang Yimou's contemporary comedy Keep Cool (banned earlier this year from the Cannes Film Festival); and the finale of the festival, Alan Rudolph's self-proclaimed "serious farce" starring Nick Nolte and Julie Christie, Afterglow. No film buff could deny the global reach of Fitzgerald's vision. Agnes Merlet's Artemisia (France), Wiktor Grodecki's Mandragora (Czech Republic), Zhang Yuan's East Palace, West Palace (China), Alexei Balabanov's Brother (Russia) and Jose Araujo's Landscapes of Memory (Brazil) all contributed to the continued legacy of the AFI Fest's international agenda.

But Fitzgerald's background is American independent film, and the domestic quota was met in spades by the likes of competitive entry No Child of Mine, Peter Kosminsky's child-abuse drama which won Honorable Mention from the jury; Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse's Lover Girl, starring Kristy Swanson and Sandra Bernhard in a story about a teenage girl roped into work at a massage parlor; and industry tales like Rodney Lee Rodger's Steamed Milk, depicting an aspiring screenwriter's last day at a coffeehouse and Gary Rosen's Hacks about a group of television writers in Hollywood which boasts a cast including Stephen Rea, Illeana Douglas, John Ritter and Lisa Kudrow.

Films in the New Visions section vied for a select handful of very lucrative cash prizes, such as the Miramax-donated $20,000 award for Best Feature Film which went to Stan Schofield's feminist drifter drama Cost of Living; the film's lead, Edie Falco, also won the award for Best New Actress. Best New Actor went to Joe Russo for his performance in Pieces, a film about hairpiece salesmen which he co-directed with his brother Anthony. Best New Director went to Peter Turman for Without a Map, and Best New Writer went to Jack Perez for his dark, wry take on love triangles in The Big Empty.

Documentaries ranged from Trekkies, Roger Nygard's hilarious look at "Star Trek" fanatics; to fest fave Hands on a Hardbody, S.R. Bindler's coverage of an unconventional endurance contest to win a Nissan truck; and Ira Wohl's study of his mentally retarded 70-year old cousin Philly in Best Man, his follow-up to Best Boy, which won him the Oscar 20 years ago for Best Documentary.

Acutely conscious of the ten-mile gap between Hollywood and Santa Monica, Fitzgerald created a more communal atmosphere than in years past with plush, roomy hospitality suites in both locations. But the festival was ultimately about the films being shown -- especially independent films. "Jon Fitzgerald is a true champion of the independent filmmaker," said Michael Davis, whose entry Eight Days a Week has the most impressive pedigree this year of audience approval and critical laudations for a picture that has yet to win a distributor. "He really goes to bat to get indie films exposed to the audience." Davis even mentioned a recent, post-AFI Fest radio interview in which Fitzgerald mentioned Eight Days. "He has been such a staunch supporter -- even after the festival, he's stumping my movie."

Stephen Garrett is a film editor and freelance journalist based in Los Angeles.
 
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© 2005 Filmmaker Magazine