A Review: 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival

The 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival is now over and done with, so now it is appropriate to take a look back on the event. I see that indieWire News already wrote a overview piece here, but having talked to about a dozen or more festival goers in some detail, I hope that I can give a more ground up perspective/review regarding the festival. I will review the films as I write them this week, however, this post will be just the festival in general. (Note: Unless an official website is available, the following links are links to IMDB by default)

An Overview
In general, I really enjoyed my time at the 2010 LAFF. It was my first time spending any extended length of time in downtown LA and it was surprisingly a lively and fun experience. It definitely helped that I stayed nearby and that my naturally curious mind helped me explore downtown LA a little bit more. The staff and volunteers were very nice and helpful in general. The only real issue I noticed was that early in the week there seemed to be some confusion and mild frustration regarding the ticketing process. I myself had to go between the ticketing tent at the parking lot and the ticketing counter at Regal Cinemas a number of times to clear up an issue I had with my film pass. I also witnessed a number of festival-goers express some frustration at both the ticketing tent and the Regal counters, having been told they were in the wrong location. However, it seemed as the week went by things got a little bit smoother. I think this issue may be attributed to being at LA downtown for the first year, with many operational kinks still being discovered with a new location.

I don't know if this is related since I haven't been to previous year's LAFF but I was a little bit surprised by the emptiness of some of the screenings and relatively small crowd. I estimate maybe 40-50 for the first 4 films I saw, 3 of which were on the weekend. For "Marwencol" and "Dog Sweat", perhaps having caught some quick buzz, had significantly more and filled out the theater a little better. Honestly, I thought it was okay, as someone else noted, since it helped with what could've been potential crowding at the theater. I was also a little bit disappointed I didn't have any Q&A's till the last day I was there with "Marwencol" and "Dog Sweat"...however, I considered my last day my lucky day since I did get two Q&A's. I thought it was pretty cool that they opened their Live.Create Zone Perfect Lounge to the public during the day (before 4pm) for people to escape the heat, enjoy some live music, do some communal painting, surf the web and chat with other film-goers.

Overall, the festival seemed well-run and organized, minus the ticketing issues. I think having a year under their belt at this venue will help with the flow of things in years to come.

Films I saw: Orly, dir. Angela Schanelec FRANCE; Judge (Touxi), dir. Jie Liu CHINA; Street Days, dir. Levan Koguashvili GEORGIA; Café Noir, dir. Jung Sung-il S. KOREA; Dog Sweat dir. Hossein Keshavarz IRAN; Marwencol dir. Jeff Malmberg USA.

Films I wished I saw: Mr. Okra, dir. T.G. Herrington (Short), Parade, dir. Isao Yukisada JAPAN; Four Lions dir. Christopher Morris UK; Centurion, dir. Neil Marshall UK; and the premiere of Despicable Me (Ok, so that's not an indie film but oh well)

Stand-out survey (panel of 12): Greg and Cindy from Minnesota gave big props to "Animal Kingdom" and also commended "The New Year" and "The Kids Are Alright"... Tina and Greg, who claimed to have watched about 3 films/day at 2010 LAFF had much praise for "Marwencol", "Hello, Lonesome" and "Madagascar" (Short), which appeared before "Camera, Camera"... Ed claimed his favorite was "Parade" (in japanese), which Tina had said she also liked.... Mindy and Steve (avid cinephiles) from LA gave big props to "Waiting for Superman" and "A Family"... Other individuals didn't specify anything that stood out... I had asked Tina if she had caught any "uplifting" films (since I didn't in my choices), she said "no" in general, but said "New Year" had the "possibility of hope" but that it wasn't "necessarily uplifting".

Festival takes: Tina said "it works well logistically", claiming the parking is better and the central location of the screenings helped in comparison with Westwood (the previous location), she said, however, there wasn't much food for the budget-conscious and she started packing her own lunch (which I think is smart, regardless)... Greg and Cindy said that they've so far enjoyed their experience (and first time in California) and that "everyone [was] very nice" at the festival... Mindy said the festival was less "intensive" since she is not traveling to the festival but she did mention that parking is expensive downtown... one other individual I didn't get the name of who went to previous LAFF's stated the new location made it somewhat difficult since he now had to travel to this new location... One individual had told me he though the festival seemed well-run, he was thoroughly "disappointed" by the quality of the films in this year's festival...There seems to have been some pointed discussion regarding attaching both the premiere of "Twilight: Eclipse" and "Despicable Me" to the official festival program, one side which says it helps draw new audiences that would've not known about LAFF otherwise and one side which says it muddles the festival's identity as a voice for indie film (as FIND is a LAFF supporter)...

Film Reviews: I will be writing a number of reviews of the films I watched during the 2010 LAFF. In addition, I will hope to incorporate the opinions and reactions of the audiences at the screening, giving a multi-layered perspective to the review. They will be coming out in the days and weeks to come (hopefully not too many weeks). I look forward to reading your responses to these films as well.

Stay Tuned! Thanks for reading this!