LA Film Festival opens with Woody Allen and closes with ‘Magic Mike’
LOS ANGELES, June 13 – Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love opens the 18th annual Los Angeles Film Festival, June 14-24, organised by Film Independent, which also holds the Spirit Awards to honour indie filmmakers.
Films scheduled to premiere at the event include People Like Us starring Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games) and Chris Pine (Star Trek), and the animated film Brave.
Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike starring Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey, about the life of male strippers, will close the festival. It is due to be released at the end of June.
Oscar winning director William Friedkin (The Exorcist, To Live and Die in L.A.) is the fest’s Guest Director, to be interviewed on stage before the screening of his latest film, Killer Joe, starring Matthew McConaughey as a creepy, crazy Dallas cop moonlighting as a contract killer. The film releases July 27.
In addition to panels and Q&A sessions, conversations will feature HBO’s new original series The Newsroom created by Aaron Sorkin (West Wing, The Social Network), which stars Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer and Sam Waterston and focuses on a 24-hour cable news channel.
The festival screens 200 feature films, shorts and music videos, representing more than 30 countries, including Lorene Scafaria’s Seeking a Friend for the End of the World starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere and Benh Zeitlin’s acclaimed Beasts of the Southern Wild.
The free outdoor event will be a Dirty Dancing Dance-A-Long to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film and a Retro section, which will show the 1961 film Ballads, Blues and Bluegrass by Alan Lomax (on the soundtrack of Gangs of New York, The Aviator and more) in its first theatrical screening.
The programme consists of juried competitions of narrative and documentary films with signature events such as the Filmmaker Retreat and talks with filmmakers including Catherine Hardwicke, director of Twilight, and Wally Pfister, cinematographer for The Dark Knight Rises.
Tim Burton’s composer Danny Elfman, who will screen hand-picked film clips with his favourite scores, and record producer Raphael Saadiq, are among the Artists in Residence.
http://www.lafilmfest.com/ – AFP
