L.A. Fest,
Le Fest,
Les Fests

The Los Angeles Film Festival opened this week for an 11-day run and will almost immediately be followed by Outfest. The two events even share a common film - Don Roos's Sundance-premiered Happy Endings.

Film festivals come in all shapes but these two events typify showcases that either try to be a general overview or, alternatively, something for a targeted audience. The latter embraces just about anything from a focus on a filmmaking nation to silent films, a particular genre or subject such as "women's" issues.

We tend to think of film festivals as being more generalized and the obvious template is Cannes. Or, at least, the Cannes that receives the lion's share of attention - the one composed of about 25 of the 600 movies shown in any given year. It's the festival's primary competition section and specifically the evening galas with the long walk up the red carpet to clicking paparazzi and cheering crowds.

There's really no other festival that can get away with the glamour of a Hollywood premiere for a screening of sometimes arcane and generally high brow movies. Certainly none of the current movie extravaganzas that take place in greater Los Angeles have the panache, history or chutzpah to embrace George Lucas and Jean-Luc Godard with equal vigor.

The real Cannes is primarily a sales event. The media tends to focus on the tip of the iceberg while the generals and foot soldiers that trudge up and down the Croisette are busy trying to sell their wares to pay for the exorbitant cost of doing business on the Riviera or buying up pictures to justify their trip. There are other film markets on the calendar but they are either all business or like Toronto or Sundance don't officially embrace that part of the industry.

Most film festivals - including those set in Los Angeles - don't sell many movies because they don't program a sufficient number of A-list and high profile alternative movie world premieres. So, other than fulfilling the specific geographic needs of their audience, they aspire to be an important stop on the film going circuit by dint of brilliant programming or peerless patrons.

To pump up the equation, many include a competitive section to give attendees the sense they're part of the artistic equivalent of a sporting event. Some literally make patrons the jury, replacing awards given by a stellar industry panel with audience prizes. Sundance goes the suspenders-belt route with jury and audience prizes while Toronto calls itself a non-competitive event but has an audience prize as well as panels doling out a handful of other honors.

I've participated on film juries at a number of festivals and personal experience leads me to the conclusion that prizes are better for the ego than the pocket book. Los Angeles festivals take a certain amount of pride in their press releases and promotional literature by stating that they premiered movies that went on to win Oscars or were picked up for theatrical distribution.

Several films in the documentary competition at last year's L.A. Fest including Rock School and Up for Grabs eventually did secure theatrical sales but the competitive roster failed to find buyers despite some very good entries. There are certainly other factors than merely quality that conspired against sales at festivals in L.A., Chicago, Seattle or other events that aren't quite in the very major leagues. The films may come up short in perceived marketability whether that translates into a no-name cast or the subject material. However, likely more telling is the fact that the significant acquisitions companies in general send junior buyers to "cover product" and they have to be passionate about motivating people to see hitherto unheralded movies.

The Los Angeles Film Festival because of its history and current affiliation with Film Independent feels a certain obligation to promote alternative American movies. However, those who produce, market and represent films from outside the mainstream don't have the showcase on as high a priority level. An independent filmmaker looking to sell a movie on the heat of a festival screening wants to be selected by Sundance, Toronto or Cannes. Those events attract people that are looking for new films.

They also draw in a large and significant press contingent and savvy sellers know how to translate news coverage into a bidding war. It's all about selling wares at these festivals and that badly handicaps others hoping to replicate their prestige and standing.

This year's L.A. Film Fest is bookended by films that premiered at Cannes and Sundance and also managed to snap up several other titles including Broken Flowers fresh from their debuts in the South of France. The AFI Fest later in the year similarly tends to piggyback on Toronto and has the added strategic asset of trumpeting movies as they prepare to wade into the Oscar derby.

There's nothing particularly wrong and often considerable benefit in both situations. However, for a certain stripe of viewer it means that they're not entering into what might be best described as a "discovery" festival. One can argue the terminology but if the understanding is that one is experiencing the first wave of a picture's critical tsunami, the observation is difficult to refute.

For quite a number of years entertainment writers in this town would proffer pieces that posited the question: why can't Los Angeles program an A-List film festival? The stories never quite came to grips with the unique roadblocks involved with putting on show in the movie capitol of the world and seemed to suggest that the problem might relate to slacking of some sort.

The degree to which establishment Hollywood resists participating in a film festival in its own back yard is extreme. There's a heightened sensitivity about scrutiny so close to home. They cannot completely control the guest list or media scrutiny in the manner of a premiere and are fully aware that not all publicity tilts toward the positive.

Theoretically it is possible for Los Angeles to support a world class film festival though I'm skeptical it could happen in the near future. In addition to dogged persistence it would require a considerable bankroll none of the potential organizations presently possess. It also requires a hunger for such an event by the public that one has rarely seen since Toronto bowed in the late 1970s. TriBeCa comes close to that zeitgeist and appears much closer to moving into the echelon than its California cousins.

- by Leonard Klady