The downtown experiment, it seems, was a success.
The Los Angeles Film Festival wrapped up on Sunday after an 11-day run in downtown Los Angeles, a far cry from its former homes in Westwood and Hollywood. And the response, for the most part, was positive.
“You can plan up to a certain point, but eventually you just have to take a chance and hope for the best,” Sid Ganis, a member of Film Independent’s board of directors, told FIND executive director Dawn Hudson at the awards announcement on Saturday. “And I think it was great.”
Festival director Rebecca Yeldham called this year’s LAFF “a magnificent experience” – and in the 10-year history of FIND’s stewardship of the festival, it was certainly a unique one.
It kicked off with an opening-night screening a block from where the Lakers were playing the deciding Game 7 of the NBA championship series. A week and a half later, its winners were announced in a restaurant where a TV at the rear of the room was playing the final U.S. game in the World Cup tournament.
It threatened to be overshadowed by a movie about teen vampires and werewolves, the world premiere of “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” even as it showed a lineup mostly of serious, low-budget indie films.
It flew in the face of conventional wisdom that said L.A.’s Westsiders wouldn’t fight the traffic to go to downtown's L.A. Live campus, but somehow managed to sell out screenings of small films and documentaries that might ordinarily have a hard time drawing a half house to the Arclight or Landmark on a weeknight.
In between the Lakers and the Twi-hards, history will show that “A Family” and “Make Believe” won the jury prizes, “Four Lions” and “Thunder Soul” the audience awards.
But film festivals are rarely about consensus – they’re too spread out for that, with far too many movies for every festivalgoer to have the same experience with the same films. One person might have loved “Revolucion” and “Golden Slumber,” while the next missed both of them but flipped for “The People Vs. George Lucas” and “Bitter Feast.”
So here, looking back at the festival, is one experience – mine. It was frustrating at times (for every movie I saw, I added one or two to my list of films I wanted to see but couldn’t get to), but also a satisfying 11 days of cinema.
Favorite narrative film: “Animal Kingdom” (right) David Michod’s Australian crime drama – a touch of “Goodfellas,” a hint of “A Prophet” – quietly rachets up the tension, and features remarkable performances from Ben Mendelsohn and Jacki Weaver, among others.
Runners-up: “Four Lions” (hapless would-be suicide bombers in a profane, hilarious, politically incorrect comedy in the vein of “In the Loop”), “The Kids Are All Right” (a subtle, strong, wonderfully-acted family drama from Lisa Cholodenko).
