..Picks For Opening Weekend

In a recent interview, Los Angeles Film Festival executive director Richard Raddon made it quite clear that the organization's goal was to create a world class movie event in the city most associated with the seventh art. While he admitted that the LAFF wasn't at that vaunted level, he offered no benchmarks for when he hoped to realize that objective.

Raddon and fest programmer Rachel Rosen trotted out oft-repeated obstacles to their goal: resistance or indifference from studio honchos, the inability to convince distributors and agents to debut films and logistical issues of mounting something of this nature in a town where it's virtually impossible to find a sufficient number of screens within a reasonable walking distance.

There are other issues - not the least of which is how well screened Los Angeles has become. Two weeks ago the American Cinematheque ran a week of recent European movies that might otherwise have fit nicely into the LAFF program. Next month Outfest will undoubtedly unveil a couple of films that were being eyed by the now playing festival and there are almost endless programs every year spotlight new films from India, France, Spain, Italy, Argentina and Korea.

Most movie festivals cannot hope to attain the status of Cannes, Venice or Berlin. All were established well ahead of the pack and have long standing relationship that ensure a bevy of world premieres of the type of films that excite buyers and attract the press. There are less than a handful of other cinematic spotlights of comparable status - Toronto that overlaps Venice, and Sundance and Rotterdam that have targeted the specialized market.

Sundance, according to lore, was struggling to survive until it moved to January and developed a reputation for debuting American independent cinema with commercial appeal such as sex, lies, and videotape. The LAFF has also experimented with dates and coming a month after Cannes would suggest it might benefit from a couple of last minute additions from the May conclave. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Organizers lined up the Romania feature 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days in advance of its winning the festival's top prize only to have it yanked from its schedule when IFC distribution acquired U.S. rights.

Summer is probably as good a time to run a festival with lofty ambitions. And yet, as with the Romania film, it poses a problem for distributors with ideas about strategic premieres to coincide with fall award campaigns. That glitch, nonetheless, is a much smaller dilemma than what might be described as the age old conundrum about whether a sound is heard when a tree falls in the forest and no one is there.

The festival (and most of the other Los Angeles movie events) doesn't get a lot of media attention and what it receives tends to list toward mainstream titles and celebrity participants. The Los Angeles Times weekend entertainment section that comes out on Thursdays chose to highlight Gene Autry's centenary and the cover tipped two other current attractions. The inside story on the festival provided a broad overview by a writer that quite obviously hadn't seen any of the selections, though it made mention of last year's premiere of Deliver Us from Evil and underlined its historic strength in the area of non-fiction selections.

Press is quite possibly what could turn the tide for the LAFF. But it's unquestionably a costly and long term investment. When Toronto raised the curtain three decades back, money was set aside to bring in influential American and European journalists including Roger Ebert. It turned out to be money well spent as the scribes wrote glowingly about the program and hospitality of the Canadian metropolis.

But the intrinsic push me/pull you that all movie celebrations have to confront is the commitment of programmers versus the pragmatism of bottom line board members. American festivals aren't buttressed by federal government grants and receive only token support from state and civic agencies. So investing in as vague an area as publicity that might not pay off for years when the same money might be put toward a more immediate need invariably favors the issues that are most tangible.

All that said, whether the Los Angeles Film Festival is recognized as one of those per force indelible stops on the festival calendar in the foreseeable future may be moot. For the present it's doing quite well in meeting the needs of its audience from all outward appearances. One of the distinctive aspects of this and other local cinema showcases is the preponderance of slots not specifically assigned to traditional screenings.

In addition to new and classic features from the U.S. and abroad there are concerts, workshops and on-stage interviews with myriad folks familiar for their work in front and behind the camera. There are outdoor screenings, a finance conference, a diversity expo and a skateboard competition to bolster the idea that LAFF is a happening and not simply a long string of film projections.

The gestalt plays into more of a contemporary than a traditional sensibility. It also appears to cater to the membership of Film Independent, the organization that operates the event. It affords members as well as like-minded folk to rub shoulders with people that clawed their way into the industry and seemingly network with industry types that might foster than careers a step or two forward. There's something inevitable about being in the physical proximity of so much film production that demands a film festival have a connection to the industry and in that respect the LAFF succeeds.

A film festival ought to be judged by what it does rather than presumed omissions. Few events of this nature work equally for the industry, press and public and the fact that the LAFF appears to be a success with those that buy tickets is a significant achievement. The next two steps are a challenge only time will determine whether organizers can surmount.

- by Leonard Klady