Latest in LA Film Festival

Amazon-owned Withoutabox, the dominant indie film festival submission platform for the last decade, has decided to end its service. In a letter to users, the service – run through IMDbPro – said it would “phase out” the service over the next year. Withoutabox was the official platform for Sundance and had been used by…

EXCLUSIVE: In Rob Schulbaum’s (Family Guy) directorial debut, The Wrong Todd, the titular Todd (Jesse Rosen) finds out that his girlfriend Lucy (Anna Rizzo) has been offered a promotion on the other side of the country and he has to decide whether or not he will go. Before he can make his decision his evil twin comes…

The Los Angeles Film Festival will close with the world premiere of first-time writer/director David Raymond’s psychological thriller Nomis, which will screen on Sept. 28 at the Arclight Hollywood Cinerama Dome. The film focuses on a police trap for online predator Simon Stulls. They soon realize that the extent of…

Andrew Slater’s music documentary Echo in the Canyon has been set as the opening night film of Film Independent’s 2018 LA Film Festival, which kicks off Sept. 20 and continues through Sept. 28. This will mark the world premiere of the documentary which puts the spotlight on iconic music groups The Byrds, The Beach…

Forty feature films including 24 world premieres highlight the official LA Film Festival competition lineup in the fest’s move into the crowded fall festival corridor, away from their previous early-summer perch. Among the movies in competition is the highly regarded Swedish film Border (Grans) from director Ali…

In any previous year, the annual LA Film Festival would have been over a month ago, but now in what is certainly, at least partially, a bid to be taken more seriously as a real player on the fest circuit — in the very backyard where Oscar hopefuls get birthed — the Film Independent-produced fest is looking to be a…

Five independent filmmakers received cash grants totaling $150,000 today from Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the LA Film Festival. The recipients were announced at the annual Spirit Awards Nominee Brunch held at BOA Steakhouse in West Hollywood. John Cho (Star Trek…

The LA Film Festival will host the gala screening of New Line Cinema's horror film Annabelle: Creation which takes place this year June 14th through the 22nd at the ArcLight Cinemas Culver City, with additional screenings at ArcLight Hollywood and ArcLight Santa Monica and other theaters. The latest Annabelle was…

Jonás Cuarón's Desierto will be the closing night film of the LA Film Festival on June. 9. In addition, the festival will also host a world premiere special screening of James Wan's The Conjuring 2 on June 7. The horror film will be released in theaters nationwide on June 10 from New Line/Warner Bros. Also, the cast…

The Orchard has nabbed North American distribution rights to The Escort in a deal made just before the comedy world-premieres tonight at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The plan is to give it a VOD release beginning July 28. The pic centers on Mitch (Michael Doneger, who also penned the script with Brandon Cohen), a…

Emily Ting's It’s Already Tomorrow In Hong Kong starring real life couple Jamie Chung and Bryan Greenberg concerns a budding romance between a Chinese American toy designer (Chung) who meets an American expat (Greenberg) during her first visit to Hong Kong. The film marks the directorial debut of Ting who also wrote…

The Los Angeles Film Festival ended  Thursday night on a high note (a really high note, in fact) at LA Live with the premiere of Clint Eastwood‘s movie version of the smash Broadway jukebox musical, Jersey Boys which has been running nearly a decade — and with no end in sight. The film, which I thought was terrific…