Film Festivals

From a Gas Station Screening to Linsanity: Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

See also: *More L.A. Weekly Film Coverage *5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This WeekFriday, April 26 Friday, April 26 From Japanese director Shunji Iwai comes Vampire, a film about a teacher (Kevin Zegers -- a long way from his Air Bud days) who seduces his suicidal female students prior to draining ... More >>

Pan African Film and Arts Festival 2013 Spotlights Immigration, Civil Rights and Jazz

Sundance 2013: America's Black Indie Film Renaissance

You could hear a pin drop during the first Sundance screening of writer-director Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale, an enormously powerful and moving debut feature based on the shooting death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant by Oakland transit police in the early hours of New Year's Day, 2009. Coogler opens the fi ... More >>

Sundance 2013: Sex with James Franco, Sultry Scarlett Johansson, Daniel Radcliffe's Jew-Fro, and a Great Film From Jordan

In his brief remarks before the first public screening of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, Robert Redford praised the Sundance Institute's ongoing filmmaker development labs as "our core," noting that the festival itself was conceived "to create an audience for the filmmakers in our lab program."

5 Films People Will Be Talking About at Sundance

For the next 10 days, all Hollywood eyes--and those of many a filmgoer--will turn toward the frigid wilds of Park City, Utah, reportedly experiencing its chilliest winter in a decade. Their collective hope: to discover at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival (January 17 through 26) the next Beasts of the ... More >>

Quentin Tarantino Wants a Second Oscar. Will Django Give It to Him?

Quentin Tarantino emerges from a chaotic couple of years with his most ambitious film to date, Django Unchained. Will the Academy really, really like it?

20 Movies You Need to See at AFI Fest 2012

Middle of Nowhere Director (and Former Rapper) Ava DuVernay on the Future of Black Film

Telluride Film Festival: Noah Baumbach, Sarah Polley Bring New Films

Robert Redford Chats About His Sundance Cinemas 
Opening in the Old Sunset 5 Space

When the Sundance Sunset Cinema opens to the public on Friday, it will be as much a return as it is a replacement. The new theater, situated in the West Hollywood spot occupied by the Laemmle Sunset 5 for 20 years until it closed last year, aims to re-inject some life into Los Angeles' occasionally ... More >>

Almayer's Folly by the Elusive Director Chantal Akerman Is Thrilling...and Its Screening Includes a Belgian Beer Party

Long a favorite among die-hard cinephiles, Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman is as noted for her elusiveness as she is for the quality of her work. Her uncompromising (and 201-minute-long) 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, to name the best-known example, is something of ... More >>

Outfest: 30 Years of History

Los Angeles Film Festival 2012: Summer Showcase

Cannes Film Festival 2012: Highlights and Lowlights

Marion Cotillard as a Hot Amputee in Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone at Cannes Film Festival

Santa Barbara Film Feast: Dinner and More Than 195 Movies

Santa Barbara's International Film Festival (SBIFF) echoes Cannes' famed film festival -- both are held in lovely seaside towns betwixt mountains and the ocean, stars come out in force and there is ample fresh local seafood. But unlike the French Riviera version, SBIFF prix fixe menus are deals: For ... More >>

Paul F. Tompkins, Garry Shandling, Margaret Cho and Other Comedians Show Their Favorite Movies at Cinefamily

George Lucas, John Baldessari, and Kenneth Anger Walk Into a Bar ...

Telluride Film Festival

Clooney collides with silent classics, while 3-D goes otherworldly

Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

Independence Day = aliens

Los Angeles Film Festival 2011 Preview

Cannes 2011: Terrence Malick and Brad Pitt's The Tree of Life Gets Irate Boos Followed by Thin Applause

Brad Pitt in The Tree of Life​ CANNES, FRANCE -- Much improved since I last posted, the Cannes Film Festival celebrated its midpoint in train-wreck fashion, its wagon to hitched to The Tree of Life. The first screening of Terrence Malick's long-awaited new movie, three years in the editing, ... More >>

A Serbian Film: Kiddie Porn? Historical Satire? Both?

The legal battles of Eli Roth's "litmus test for dates"

Rock Out With Your Doc Out

LACMA Salutes 50 Years of Cannes Discoveries

Screening series draws on La semaine de la critique

Live at SXSW: Gary Lucas Scores Dracula, the Lusty Latin Version

Wendy Gilmartin​What: Gary Lucas Plays Spanish Dracula Where: Central Presbyterian Church, Austin, TX When: March 15 Escucha a ellos. Los hijos de la noche. What better place to watch a movie about a blood-sucking vampiro and his howling children of the night than on holy ground? With its re ... More >>

IT'S SORTA LIKE CANNES, BUT WITH MORE BOOBS

3D IS GOOD

Catfish: Love in the Time of Facebook

Stranger than fiction, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost's film gets at the truth about connecting in the cyber age

Telluride: Down From The Mountain

Studios trek to Colorado festival in search of art-film street cred

Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles: the 2 Percent Solution

Yearly event culls the cream of Bollywood and beyond

45365: The Mysteries of a Zip Code

Bill and Turner Ross’ award-winning doc about their hometown impresses with craft and patience

Meg White Cries: White Stripes Doc Reveals Mysteries Behind the Band

Erin BroadleyJack White​"Make as much noise as you want," recommended The White Stripes: Under Great Northern Lights director Emmett Malloy, before the film's premiere at the SXSW Film Festival on Friday night. In practice, the audience didn't make much noise at all: we were, for the most part ... More >>

EVERYTHING'S UP TO DATE IN CULVER CITY!

Learning German From Michael Haneke

Sautéed chicken breasts over fascism, from the director of The White Ribbon

NIHILIST YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS

Rivera Sponsors Downtown Film Festival New Late Night Menu

The Downtown Film Festival starts today, with John Sedlar's restaurant Rivera (also downtown) as the festival's restaurant sponsor. To mark the event, Rivera has a special 3 course prix fixe menu (for $40) available starting tonight. You can watch trailers for the Festival's movies on the restaurant ... More >>

The Curious Case of "Bananas!*": A Case Study

If the advanced reviews of "Bananas!*" were any indication of how it would be received, the new documentary by Swedish director Fredrik Gertten was not slotted to be one of the hot tic ... More >>

At the Helm of the L.A. Film Festival

Producer Rebecca Yeldham fights the good film fight

New York Minutes

Cannes 2008: A Brief History of the Directors' Fortnight

Inside the other Cannes

Lumière’s Descendent: Thierry Frémaux

Cannes’ artistic director

Born to Be Rad

John S. Rad, 1936–2007

Sundance in Fragments

Festival’s documentaries offer a survey of global disorder

Burning Bright

Simon Field and the Tigers of Rotterdam

Tales from the Vienna ’hood

Dog Days and the New Austrian Cinema

Independent No More?

The new Los Angeles Film Festival

Another Side of Sundance

Working Films’ “meaningful marketing”

Canada Semi-dry

The Toronto Film Festival turns 25

Hypeless in Toronto