Running film festivals is a scary business so perhaps it’s fitting that Film Independent announced the end of the Los Angeles Film Festival (also known as LA Film Festival) on Halloween. In a release, Film Independent, the organization that has run both LAFF and the Independent Spirit Awards, announced last month’s festival would be its last and they will fill in the gap moving forward with “year-round events aimed at building community and broadening its support of visual storytellers.” Which, frankly, sounds like what it was already doing in the first place. The news will be something of a shock to the LA film community, but once you take a step back perhaps not as much.
The Los Angeles Film Festival began in 1995 as the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. In 2001, it was taken over by Film Independent who dropped the “Independent” portion of the festival (in name only) and have run it ever since. For years LAFF was held in the numerous theaters in LA’s Westwood neighborhood, the home of UCLA. Even though it took place in the summer (usually June) there were still enough students in the area to make most screenings well-attended. And toward the end of its stay there Hollywood studios started to use it as a launching pad for summer premieres such as David Frankel’s “The Devil Wears Prada,” Michael Bay’s “Transformers” and Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies.”
The problem, however, is that LA’s industry (press, execs, agents, filmmakers, you name it) often complained about Westwood (still a parking nightmare) and it became increasingly difficult to get them to attend screenings of films they often wanted to see. So, in 2010, the festival did something dramatic. It moved downtown to the Regal Cinemas which are part of the LA Live complex which also includes Staples Center and the Microsoft Theater. Regal Cinemas had just opened and built a huge showcase theater specifically for movie premieres. There was a separate entrance so you didn’t go into the main part of the cineplex and everything. And, for at least the first two years it felt like LAFF had something special going. They landed some solid U.S. and/or world premieres to kick off the festival and attendance appeared solid. They even flew in press from outside Los Angeles to cover the festival. There a packed speaking series featuring notable filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan and Guillermo del Toro, among others. But this was at just the beginning of downtown LA’s revival which at the moment is still growing by leaps and bounds. And, as LA film industry is want to do, they complained. About the traffic, about it being “downtown,” you name it. The irony, of course, is DTLA is now the place to be these days. If Film Independent had only stuck it out a few more years…but, sigh, they didn’t.
In 2016, the festival moved to the Arclight Cinemas in…Culver City. There are two words in that sentence that notably earned LA’s attention “Arclight Cinemas” as that theater chain is the first choice for any major moviegoer in the industry. The other two words – “Culver City” – not so much. Unless you worked at Sony Pictures or lived on the Westside Culver City can be something of a trek. With an indie film community centered in Hollywood and the west side of Silverlake and Echo Park for most of this century, it seemed…strange. They tried to alleviate this problem by expanding to Santa Monica venues the following year, but it clearly wasn’t working (perhaps because it was even further away?).
A little over a year ago it was announced LAFF would be held not in June, but in September of 2018. This seemed like a smart way to get more sought after films after their initial Venice, Telluride and Toronto runs. It also seemed like a shot across the bow to November’s AFI Fest that a formidable figure was now going to be competing for the LA premieres of some major titles. But, sadly, that’s not what happened at all.
Talk to any studio publicist or awards consultant and they’ll tell you they were intrigued by the prospect of LA Film Festival’s new September offering, but none of them wanted to be the first to try it out. LAFF landed a screening of Rupert Everett’s “The Happy Prince,” Ike Barinholtz’s “The Oath” and Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi “Free Solo,” but those were shockingly low profile compared to even the international films it screened in June 2017. The festival expanded its venues to include Beverly Hills’ WGA Theater and Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, but barely anyone knew that those venues were in use. Marketing for the September change was tough to come by and many moviegoers even unaware it was even being held. In theory, you might have thought Film Independent would stick it out another year in September or, perhaps, move to October after the New York Film Festival and before AFI. Instead, they threw in the towel and, frankly, who can blame them?
Running a film festival in any city is tough, but getting major sponsors and attention for LA Film Festival in the summer was always difficult. September was supposed to help, it didn’t. The problem was always the summer and keeping it in June for so long may have been the beginning of a long, slow death. There is a reason most American cities don’t have major film festivals during this season and even Sundance has had issues keeping its fantastic NextFest going in DTLA, putting it on “hiatus” this past August after three straight years.
Los Angeles is the film capital of the world, one assumes it needs a world-class film festival. Film Independent struggled to make the LA Film Fest fill that void. Perhaps, despite logistical and incestuous problems, AFI Fest really is the best LA can do right now. But there was always so much promise with what LA Film Fest could become and that, more than anything, will be missed.
