Skip to content
Advertisement

Los Angeles Film Festival celebrates the city as a mecca for inspiration, variety

Advertisement
Los Angeles Film Fest (77683)
Los Angeles Film Fest

At this point in its history, the film industry is becoming increasingly decentralized as productions move to more (economically) hospitable locales. The Los Angeles Film Festival, now in its 20th year, seeks to celebrate the charms of this, the birthplace of moving pictures. Towards this goal, they have initiated a special section within the festival to highlight 11 movies inspired by the “City of Angeles.” Under the banner L.A. Muse, this “festival within a festival” is meant to promote the idea of L.A. as a continuing source of inspiration for filmmakers on an international level, and is curated by Los Angeles Film Festival Director Stephanie Allain (now in her third year shepherding the fest), and internationally renowned critic Elvis Mitchell.

Allain is a veteran producer who nurtured the early careers of filmmakers Darnell Martin, Robert Rodriguez, and John Singleton. She helped launch Singleton’s break-through movie, “Boyz n the Hood,” and since then she has produced such titles as “Biker Boyz,” “Hustle & Flow,” “Black Snake Moan,” and the upcoming “Blackbird” starring emerging star Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

Critic and Detroit native Mitchell is considered a leading voice in cinema and culture, and has held positions including stints as director of development at Paramount Studios, a commentator on PBS and Turner Classic Movies, lecturer at Harvard University, and he produced HBO’s “The Black List,” a documentary series profiling African American notables. Just recently, he was appointed curator for the Film Independent series at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

With nearly 200 individual films slated for screening, the LA Film Fest’s number of titles with Black-themed subjects and/or performers may, depending on one’s point of view, be a pleasant surprise or merely a sign of the times.

A selected filmography

“Echo Park” builds upon the idea of the city as a character within a film in a conventional love story. Seeking a respite from a stagnant romance and the perfection of her Beverly Hills stomping grounds, a well-heeled woman moves several miles east on Sunset Boulevard to sample the multicultural gentrification that currently exists within the neighborhood that shares its name with the film. There, she transcends cultural, economic, and demographic boundaries to find love in the arms of a character played by Anthony Okungbowa, the British Nigerian actor best known as the DJ performing daily on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show” on CBS television.

The concept of using a single actor to convey a narrative is not an original idea, but none-the-less remains novel perhaps because of the difficulty of successfully pulling it off. In “Nightingale,” this formidable task falls to up-and-coming British Nigerian actor David Oyelowo, seen recently as the militant son in “The Butler,” and as a Tuskegee Airman in “Red Tails.” In a performance described as a “tour de force,” Olyelowo portrays an isolated military veteran caught up in the constraints of an overbearing mother and unrequited yearnings for a by-gone acquaintance who may or may not reciprocate feelings.

Love stories come in many guises in this, the era of gender and sexual emancipation. “The Road Within” takes a novel approach in which a protagonist is afflicted with Tourette’s Syndrome. Secreted away in a treatment facility in the hopes that his infirmity will not hamper the political aspirations of his high-profile father, the plucky young man escapes in the company of his paramour, the anorexic Zoë Kravitz. They then embark on a modern-day “road trip” to spread his mother’s cremated ashes in the ocean.

A romantic yarn of a different sort may lie within the celluloid that makes up “The Ever After.” A production that purports to examine the depths (emotional and physical) of a marriage, the movie has been kept under wraps since filming began last year with a cast that includes Rosario Dawson and rapper Kid Cudi.

Fans of suspense thrillers may enjoy “Supremacy” and its stellar cast including Derek Luke, Lela Rochon and Evan Ross. Danny Glover heads the line-up as the patriarch of a Black middle-class family, who’s wayward past returns to haunt him when members of the Aryan Brotherhood invade his home. Based on an actual event, the film is directed by ex-San Diego State basketball standout Deon Taylor.

Fresh off of his Oscar-winning triumph with the “12 Years a Slave” screen play, John Ridley slides into the director’s chair with the Jimi Hendrix biopic “All is By My Side,” starring André “3000” Benjamin of the Hip Hop duo OutKast. The film has already generated a fair amount of controversy, due in no small part to the refusal of the legendary guitarist’s estate to release the rights to his recordings. The film focuses on the two years leading up to his dramatic début at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and features Ghanaian actress Clare-Hope Ashitey as Hendrix’ girlfriend Faye Pridgon. She was instrumental in supporting the future Rock star during his formative years in Harlem.

Up-and-coming director Justin Simien has created a fair amount of buzz with his dramatic satire “Dear White People,” which examines the realities of a post-racial society within the confines of a prestigious college. Perhaps the picture with the highest name recognition in the festival, it is a contemporary commentary on the racial mores of the times, and was executive produced by festival director Allain. Simultaneously delving into the difficulties of being a minority in a predominately White environment and the cultural misconceptions that exist throughout America, it stars Tyler James Williams of “Everybody Hates Chris,” and Tessa Thompson, who most recently appeared in the CW network teen mystery “Veronica Mars,” and Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls.”

The documentary genre is well represented in the film festival with “Evolution of a Criminal.” Financial difficulties prompted Houstonian high schooler Darius Clark to mastermind an armed bank robbery. Years later, his prison sentence completed, he resumed his previously stellar academic career to earn a degree and gain acceptance to graduate school, specifically at New York University’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. In “Evolution of a Criminal,” ex-con Clark used his filmmaking skills to examine the ramifications of that fateful decision years ago. Produced by Spike Lee, the resulting movie consists of interviews with Clark’s co-conspirators, people in the bank during the incident, and his family members who endured the tribulations of his arrest, trial, and all that followed.

The justice system is the documentary focus in “Out in the Night,” which covers the lives of four African American lesbians from New Jersey as they embark on a night on the town in the mean streets of New York City. Accosted by a homophobe in the gay-friendly neighborhood of Greenwich Village, the women’s decision to fight back, and the repercussions that followed, make for an intriguing tale that explores the facets of a tale that fails, like much within the legal system, to provide neat delineations between guilt and innocence.

In “Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story,” as part of the generation nurtured on the eccentric Jazz style called bebop that emerged in the late 1940s, Morgan became enthralled by the foremost practitioner of the genus, Charlie “Bird” Parker. Unlike most of the alto saxophonists who emulated the master, Morgan eventually created his own, individual sound, but in doing so he picked up Parker’s insidious heroin habit. Unlike the virtuoso whose footsteps he followed, Morgan ultimately shook the monkey off his back, using a celebratory concert in the prison at San Quinton, featuring contemporaries and disciples of the alto sax giant, as a book end to tell his story.

The provocatively titled “Dreams are Colder than Death” appears to be a meditation on the unfulfilled aspirations in the half-century that has transpired since the Civil Rights Movement. It is directed by Arthur Jara Fielder, best known as a cinematographer on Spike Lee’s “Crooklyn,” and his wife Julie Dash’s acclaimed 1991 “Daughters of the Dust.” It features interviews with such personas as former Black Panther and law professor Kathleen Cleaver and visual artist Kara Walker, noted for her forays into the turbulent intersections of history, race and sexuality. The film is sure to be confrontational or stimulating, depending on the viewer’s point of view.

The nature of the festival, like that of its main rival, the American Film Institute’s AFI Fest held in November, is such that its catalog by rights should reflect the dozens of ethnic and lifestyle-driven cultures that make up the city. In the face of this and the fact that the Hollywood system remains closed off to the majority of the female and minority populace, attendees are encouraged to check out the Diversity Speaks series to be held at the Conga Room starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday. This event is free and open to the public. Panelists such as Elvis Mitchell and John Singleton will lead the discussion on avenues of entry, including the independent genre and music videos as methods to achieve career breakthroughs.

In spite of premature efforts by some to label the times we live in as a post-racial society, formidable barriers remain on the road to a truly inclusive social order. This year’s Los Angeles Film Festival provides ample proof that the wheels of change move steadily, if not quickly. Most of the festivities and screenings will take place at the Regal Cinemas and the L.A. Live Entertainment complex, adjacent to Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.  The festival screens June 11-19. For more information go to http://www.lafilmfest.com/.

Advertisement

Latest