A Thousand Junkies[/caption]
A Thousand Junkies, Tommy Swerdlow’s bittersweet dark comedy about a day in the life of three Los Angeles addicts — won this year’s top prize, Best Picture at the 2017 DTLA Film Festival.
Best Director for documentary feature was awarded to Miranda Bailey for The Pathological Optimist about the controversial vaccine researcher Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Adam Cushman was awarded Best Director for Restraint, his narrative feature about the dark side of suburbia.
The Best Documentary feature award was given to The Work, a powerful and poignant look at a new therapy changing the lives of convicts at Folsom Prison. The film, directed by Jairus Mcleary, will be released theatrically by The Orchard.
Top acting awards went to Sophia Mitria Schloss for Lane 1974 and Charlie Tahan for Super Dark Times.
Other top prizes announced this evening were Best Screenplay for Zach’s Brown contemporary drama Hard Surfaces, Best Short Film for Reed Van Dyk’s Dekalb Elementary, Best Editing to Carl Ambrose and Francisco Bello for their work on the psychological thriller Most Beautiful Island, and Best Cinematography to Luis Montalvo and Carlos Rossini for the atmospheric documentary The Cloud Forest.
The following special prizes were also announced: Jury Prize for Creative Vision to Art Jones for his drama Forbidden Cuba; Female Pioneer Award to Iranian director Shiva Sanjari for her documentary biopic Here The Seats Are Vacant, and actor Leo Ramsey for his Breakthrough Performance in the contemporary coming-of-age story Blue Line Station.
The festival’s Audience Favorite Award was a tie, given to both Dare To Be Different, director Ellen Goldfarb’s nostalgic look back at influential Eighties radio station WLIR, and The Dating Project, Jonathan Cipiti’s exploration of courtship in the digital age.
Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles (DTLA)
Established in 2008, the festival has screened more 1,000 films, held more 200 events and partnered with more than 75 other profit and nonprofit business in DTLA. Our programming reflects downtown L.A.’s vibrant new urbanism, the unique ethnic and cultural diversity of its neighborhoods, its burgeoning independent film community, its singular blend of late 19th and 20th century architecture, and the seminal role it played in the early days of American cinema (epitomized by the world’s largest group of vintage movie palaces located in the Broadway Theater District). Set against this dramatic backdrop, DFFLA serves as a beacon for movie fans and industry professionals throughout Southern California and beyond
DTLA Film Festival has grown to become the largest single film event in the historic center and the new creative nexus of Los Angeles. The vast majority of films screening at the festival are Los Angeles premieres from filmmakers in the U.S. and around the world.
Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles started in 2008 and takes place in Los Angeles, CA, USA
-
2017 Downtown LA Film Festival Awards – A THOUSAND JUNKIES Wins Best Film
[caption id="attachment_24667" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] A Thousand Junkies[/caption]
A Thousand Junkies, Tommy Swerdlow’s bittersweet dark comedy about a day in the life of three Los Angeles addicts — won this year’s top prize, Best Picture at the 2017 DTLA Film Festival.
Best Director for documentary feature was awarded to Miranda Bailey for The Pathological Optimist about the controversial vaccine researcher Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Adam Cushman was awarded Best Director for Restraint, his narrative feature about the dark side of suburbia.
The Best Documentary feature award was given to The Work, a powerful and poignant look at a new therapy changing the lives of convicts at Folsom Prison. The film, directed by Jairus Mcleary, will be released theatrically by The Orchard.
Top acting awards went to Sophia Mitria Schloss for Lane 1974 and Charlie Tahan for Super Dark Times.
Other top prizes announced this evening were Best Screenplay for Zach’s Brown contemporary drama Hard Surfaces, Best Short Film for Reed Van Dyk’s Dekalb Elementary, Best Editing to Carl Ambrose and Francisco Bello for their work on the psychological thriller Most Beautiful Island, and Best Cinematography to Luis Montalvo and Carlos Rossini for the atmospheric documentary The Cloud Forest.
The following special prizes were also announced: Jury Prize for Creative Vision to Art Jones for his drama Forbidden Cuba; Female Pioneer Award to Iranian director Shiva Sanjari for her documentary biopic Here The Seats Are Vacant, and actor Leo Ramsey for his Breakthrough Performance in the contemporary coming-of-age story Blue Line Station.
The festival’s Audience Favorite Award was a tie, given to both Dare To Be Different, director Ellen Goldfarb’s nostalgic look back at influential Eighties radio station WLIR, and The Dating Project, Jonathan Cipiti’s exploration of courtship in the digital age.
-
DTLA Film Festival Announces 2017 Short Film Lineup
[caption id="attachment_24691" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
Dekalb Elementary[/caption]
The 2017 DTLA Film Festival will screen more than 60 short films from filmmakers around the world in 10 distinctly different programs. Local area filmmakers will be showcased in “Only In DTLA,” exclusive to films shot in downtown Los Angeles, as well as a UCLA v. USC student film face-off. Student films from around the world will have their own dedicated program.
Other shorts programs include “Wonder Women,” which highlights female filmmakers directing leading actresses, “This Modern World,” contemporary narrative international dramas and “What the Doc Ordered,” its documentary short counterpart, “LOL WTF,” an absurdist amalgamation of some of the festival circuit’s most riotous short comedies, and finally “Unusual Objects,” boundary-pushing short cinema that is experimental in form and unique in its execution.
Among the short films of particular note are Reed Van Dyk’s harrowing SXSW-prizewinner Dekalb Elementary, inspired by a real-life 911 call placed during a school shooting, French-filmmaker Jonathan Vinel’s Berlinale-feted Martin Cries, which boldly takes gameplay graphics directly from Grand Theft Auto and mutates them into a masculine, melancholy tone-poem, and finally Janizca Bravo’s surreal black-and-white comedic mind-bender Man Rots from the Head, starring Michael Cera.
“I’m always looking for something singular, something immediate, something that from within the film you can feel the violent heartbeat of an artist needing so fervently to express something. Shorts are often a surprising, invigorating form; their so-called ‘rulebooks’ are more amorphous and mysterious than their feature-length sibling. Some projects can only work as a short form, and when all the pieces synthesize, the result can be a brutal, swift gut-punch.” said Robert John Torres, senior curator for short films.
2017 DTLA FILM FESTIVAL | SHORT FORM LINEUP
MAIN COMPETITION SHORT FILMS
DEKALB ELEMENTARY USA | Narrative | 2016 | 20’ Director: Reed Van Dyk Inspired by an actual 911 call placed during a school shooting incident in Atlanta, Georgia. STUDENT UNION Hungary | Narrative | 2016 | 9’ Director: György Mór Kárpáti The return journey on a train from a freshman summer camp, where 18-year-old Dóra has just been sexually abused. Now the president of the students’ union wants to talk with her. JOHNNY USA | Narrative | 2015 | 19 min. Director: Micah Stuart A night with a troubled stranger forces a young male sex worker to confront a haunting moment from his past that he thought he’d left behind. LUNCH TIME USA | Narrative | 2017 | 15 min. Director: Alireza Ghasemi A 16-year-old girl deals with the responsibility and harsh bureaucracy of having to identify the body of her mother. CONNIE USA | Narrative | 2017 | 9 min. Director: Joel Garber Ambivalent about her pregnancy, Connie attempts to withstand the desert, her husband, and herself. An under-explored dive into the complex psychology of expectant motherhood. THE MOTH USA | Narrative | 2016 | 15 min. Director: Sam Icklow An insomniac writer gives in to the dark pull of a Berlin winter. ACROSS MY LAND USA | Narrative | 2016 | 15 min. Director: Fiona Godivier Arizona 2016, the portray of an american family at the Mexican border. An evening, as the mother is costly watching TV with her daughter, the father and his son get their rifle prepared for a patrol tour along the border wall. In their path, they will encounter others ‘minutemen’ but also illegal immigrants. NIGHT SHIFT USA | Narrative | 2017 | 16 min. Director: Marshall Taylor Tunde Adebimpe plays Olly Jeffries, an on-again off-again actor whose career has stagnated over the years and ends up gigging as a bathroom attendant in a LA nightclub, called “The Fix”. Quick easy, tax-free money to hold him over between jobs is what he told himself when he first tried it out one weekend at the suggestion of a friend, but quickly convinced himself it wasn’t so bad and found a strange solitude that agreed with him. It’s the joy he finds in being invisible, something he calls the art of disappearing. MARTIN CRIES France | Narrative | 2017 | 16 min. Director: Jonathan Vinel Imagine you wake up one day, all your friends have disappeared. The friends that should be there are gone. So you look. You look everywhere. Every hiding place, each inch of the city, all the marshes, all the rivers. You look, but cannot find them. IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE EASY USA | Narrative | 2016 | 12 min. Director: Keith Ewell A couple fights to save their relationship that has been surreptitiously driven by the paternalistic, cultural, and media driven expectations on love ingrained in us all. INVISIBLE USA | Narrative | 2017 | 4 min. Director: William Rowe A homeless mother’s world is turned upside down when she begins to vanish from reality. She sets out on a desperate race against time to find someone to help her before she is gone forever. THE BASTARD USA | Narrative | 2016 | 24 min. Director: Jeoff Hanser A man has sex with a sex doll; a year later a plastic baby shows up on his doorstep. MAN ROTS FROM THE HEAD USA | Narrative | 2016 | 16 min. Director: Janicza Bravo A door-to-door salesman (Michael Cera) runs into an odd lot on a bum route. BLUA Colombia | Documentary | 2015 | 21 min. Director: Carolina Charry Quintero Humanity and animality are enigmatically confronted and entwined. Combining rich high-contrast 16mm images with crisp digital color scenes, BLUA composes an uncanny entry into the relationship between human and animal existence. Unfolding like a tapestry, its montage complicates the relationship between observation and fiction. Reaching for equal beauty and strangeness, BLUA is an assertion of the uncanny, a cine-poetic philosophical speculation. I MADE YOU, I KILL YOU France, Romania | Documentary | 2016 | 14 min. Director: Alexandru Petru Badelita “I have always been ashamed to talk about my childhood and I think that this caused me a lot of sadness.” THE POINT SYSTEM USA | Narrative | 2016 | 9 min. Director: Conner Bell In a candid interview on raising her two young sons, a mother reveals the system by which every aspect of her children’s lives is monetized, including affection. XYLOPHONE USA | Narrative | 2016 | 9 min. Director: Jennifer Levonian When a woman impulsively steals a goat from a petting zoo, her morning routine turns into a madcap romp through her neighborhood. NYO VWETA NAFTA Portugal, Mozambique | Documentary | 2017 | 21 min. Director: Ico Costa Inhambane. Mozambique. King-Best. Samsung Galaxy. Versace. Babes. White rooster. There are no toothpicks in Norway. Coconut trees. Baobab fruits. Superfruits. Vitamine C. Passiflorine. Alpha-linolenic acid. SMS in Chinese. Megabytes. Hotel Cardoso. Coffee is a white man’s addiction. Ngadzango. My woman. Nafta. A MEDITATION USA | Narrative | 2016 | 15 min. Director: Joe Petricca A man who is a little lost finds himself connecting with a surprising woman who shows up to buy the DVR he is selling on Craigslist. LAPS USA | Narrative | 2016 | 6 min. Director: Charlotte Wells On a routine morning, a woman on a crowded New York City subway is sexually assaulted in plain sight. HOLD ON (HOUVAST) Netherlands | Narrative | 2016 | 22 min. Director: Charlotte Scott-Wilson During an important concert one of the strings of Kyra’s cello comes loose. She gets a panic attack and gets stage fright for the first time. Kyra tries everything to lose the panic attacks and be able to play again in front of an audience. FERTILE MYRTLE USA | Narrative | 2017 | 4 min. Director: Julie Orser One woman’s absurdist struggle through the uncertain and frustrating path of infertility told in cutout animation. (OUT)CASTE USA | Narrative | 2016 | 21 min. Director: Shilpi Shikha Agrawal When a manual scavenger cannot continue her work, her 11-year-old daughter picks up where the mother left off. LUCIA, BEFORE AND AFTER USA | Narrative | 2016 | 12 min. Director: Anu Valia After traveling hundreds of miles, a woman must wait another twenty-four hours before she can get an abortion. dont f with me Australia | Narrative | 2016 | 11 min. Director: Fiona Percival This film was made with over 1000 teenage girls via Facebook who shared stories about sexual assault. LETTING GO Sweden | Narrative | 2016 | 4 min. Director: Nathalie Alvarez Sanna is forced to take care of her little brother when their mother is emotionally unavailable. BEAUTIFUL FIGURE (SZEP ALAK) Hungary | Narrative | 2016 | 16 min. Director: Hajni Kis A high-school cleaning lady falls in love with one of the female students in the school. Her love is impossible from the beginning, but she still decides to show her feelings. AMERICAN PARADISE USA | Narrative | 2017 | 19 min. Director: Joe Talbot A forgotten man in Trump’s America attempts to shift his fate with the perfect crime. Inspired by true events. SHIT KIDS USA | Narrative | 2016 | 18 min. Director: Kyle Dunnigan What happens when the most self-obsessed generation in history meets boundary-less parenting? Children who feel entitled to murder their parents. It’s a Romeo and Juliet tale, if Romeo and Juliet were total assholes. VICTOR & ISOLINA USA | Documentary | 2016 | 6 min. Director: William D. Caballero In the Unique style of Hybrid animation…Living apart, Victor and Isolina (now in their 80’s) answer questions about their life-long, complex and arduous relationship, posed from behind the lens of their documentary filmmaking Grandson. An adorable, touching, poignant love story in a funny he said/she said account. I KNOW JAKE GYLLENHAAL IS GOING TO F*#@K MY GIRLFRIEND USA | Narrative | 2016 | 15 min. Director: Nino Mancuso After Sean and his girlfriend see a Jake Gyllenhaal movie and suspecting his girlfriend has a crush on the film star, Sean’s paranoia actually seems to manifest the fateful encounter with the actor. LOST DOGS (잃어버린 개) USA | Narrative | 2017 | 15 min. Director: Cullan Bruce A woman ridiculed by her family longs to escape. Striking a deal with her brother to clear his illegal debt, she delves deeper into darkness HOT WINTER: A FILM BY DICK PIERRE USA | Narrative | 2016 | 18 min. Director: Jack Henry Robbins Dr. Manly, the world’s leading Climate Scientist and Bodybuilding Champion, gets to the bottom of global warming. VHS, 1982. THE ROBBERY USA | Narrative | 2016 | 10 min. Director: Jim Cummings Crystal robs a liquor store. It goes pretty ok. GREETINGS FROM ALEPPO Netherlands | Documentary | 2017 | 17 min. Directors: Issa Touma, Floor van der Meulen and Thomas Vroege ‘Greetings From Aleppo’ reveals how little the news about Syria corresponds with the experiences of everyday life. Photographer Issa Touma keeps away from bold declarations; he films life, the inconsistencies and perseverance as they reveal themselves in front of his camera. War is tragic and absurd. Surviving is often highly surreal and touching in this war-torn city. SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL USA | Documentary | 2016 | 23 min. Director: Alisa Yang A documentary short of based on a recorded Skype exorcism. PERFECTLY NORMAL USA | Documentary | 2016 | 12 min. Director: Joris Debeij A man who often seems lost in an imaginary world, but works hard to keep his feet on the ground, proving that one can make deliberate choices to maintain stability. GOODS Brazil | Documentary | 2017 | 15 min. Director: Carla Villa-Lobos Upon the arrival of a newcomer, six women share their experiences, desires and fears as sex workers. PEHELWANI USA, India | Documentary | 2017 | 10 min. Director: Joao Canziani The fascinating story of a group of young men that practice the ancient art of ‘pehelwan,’ or mud wrestling, at the Bhuteshwar Akhara in the town of Mathura, India. We get to witness the strict yet ultimately joyous way these men live, the tight bond they have with each other, and the reverence for the soil they wrestle upon. “THE TALK” TRUE STORIES ABOUT THE BIRDS AND THE BEES Canada | Documentary | 2016 | 9 min. Director: Alain Delannoy There are things in life you never forget. One of them, like it or not, is “The Talk”. IN THE WAKE OF GHOST SHIP USA | Documentary | 2017 | 21 min. Director: Jason Blalock Last December, Oakland’s Ghost Ship warehouse fire claimed 36 lives, the nation’s deadliest fire in over a decade. It also set off a wave of scrutiny of live/work spaces across the country. Seven miles from Ghost Ship, a legendary punk collective called Burnt Ramen is fighting back against sudden eviction.STUDENT FILMS SERIES
REST IN PEACE USA | Narrative | 2016 | 18 min. Director: Salma Amer A girl gets possessed by her father’s spirit. NOBLE CREATURES USA | Narrative | 2017 | 20 min. Director: Daniel Lafrentz Two adversarial escaped convicts – with different ideas about how to hold onto their freedom – are hunted through the Louisiana swamp by a tortured, but resolute, female corrections officer. MOTHER OF THE YEAR USA | Narrative | 2017 | 15 min. Director: Makena Costlow Sam, loving mother of two, is a hot mess. She can’t seem to handle the chaos of her daughter’s teenage rebellion and her son’s over-involved schedule. When she disappoints those who matter most to her, her mother comes to the rescue. Sliding a clear bag across the table, she introduces Sam to a drug that might solve everything. It’s powers convince Sam to volunteer herself to host the neighborhood block party. Thanks to her newly found addiction, Sam has no problem balancing her kids and her party planning. LIGHT SIGHT Iran | Narrative | 2016 | 8 min. Director: Seyed M. Tabatabaei M.E., the imprisoned character in a room is attracted to a hanging light and tries to catch it. But the room itself becomes an obstacle on his way. OPHELIA USA | Narrative | 2017 | 4 min. Director: Julia Balayan Inspired by true events, ‘Ophelia’, tells a story of a girl, whose young love meets a tragic end. Embodied by a trio of cellist, pianist and a ballerina, the video is an ode to her undying love and a tribute to her eternal memory. DEVIL WEARS A SUIT Australia | Narrative | 2017 | 20 min. Director: Eli Mak A high-concept drama/sci-fi about a Jewish boy who must decide whether to ‘cure’ his homosexuality with an injection or be ostracised from his community forever. CAMERA OBSCURA USA | Narrative | 2017 | 10 min. Director: Ashley Kroon Tessa and Vera are best friends with the shared dream of creating a final film for their high school art class that’s so sensational, it goes down in history. There’s only one problem: they don’t have a subject. Then, they meet Strange Boy.UCLA VS. USC STUDENT FILMS
BECOMING LUCY UCLAx | 10 min. Director: Luisa Novo Lucy, 15, blames her mother for her father leaving them for a 24 year-old blonde. When she finds out her crush at school likes blondes, she dyes her hair to get the attention of both men. CHANGES UCLAx | 10 min. Director: Roberto Escamilla Garduno Changes is a coming of age dramedy following the story of Mitchell, a 16 year old boy, who is taken by his friends to a shady motel to have his first sexual encounter. There she will meet Destiny, who will show him new horizons in an unexpected way. DEAD FLOWERS UCLAx | 15 min. Directors: Pablo Riquelme & Stephen R. Scott Alex is the only living son of two. He takes care of his memory damaged mother until one day their past becomes their present. SEARCHING SKIES UCLAx | 9 min. Director: Vivian Hua When a Syrian refugee family is invited to a Christian family’s house for Christmas, they are caught between opposing viewpoints — until an unexpected event occurs. STRINGS OF HOPE UCLAx | 11 min. Director: Eva Merz In 1945, a German ex-soldier has to overcome his reservations about the American troops, playing a puppet show in exchange for food for his family. FUCK USC | 6 min. Director: Nicole Danser Fuck is a bittersweet comedy that looks at the rise and fall of a couple through charting the word “Fuck” in their relationship. GEETA USC | 16 min. Director: Sohil Vaidya 16 year old Geeta has been brought to the United states as domestic worker by an Indian couple with the promises of giving her the American Dream. It is not long until Geeta slowly realizes that her financial, personal and social freedoms are slowly being stricken away from her. GOOD GIRL USC | 6 min. Director: Sade Joseph Good Girl follows Marci-Lee McKinley, an American high school student who must navigate life between her dysfunctional Jamaican Immigrant family and her predominantly-white private school. MORGAN IN MAYWOOD USC | 7 min. Director: Kevin Alexander Gallo In 1982 New Jersey, a teen boy, Morgan, has an love affair with his older manager at his part-time roller rink job. However when he discovers his manager has been keeping a secret from him, Morgan is faced with a tough decision. TECATO USC | 6 min. Director: Ronald Trejo After a run in with his AA counselor, Dom must make a decision to tell someone or not.7 ENEMY NATIONS SHORTS
SING FOR ME Iraq | Documentary | 2015 | 38 min. Director: Sama Waham ‘Sing For Me’ is a poetic documentary that contemplates the notion of belonging and inherited nostalgia, while investigating the viewpoint of fractured diasporic identities and ethnic solidarity, and meditating on Mandaeanism; a fading ancient practice that goes back to Babylonian history. A LIFE STORY Libya | Narrative | 2016 | 14 min. Director: Muhannad Lamin The story of Amen, a young man who left home and across the Sahara in order to provide for his family in militia controlled Libya. THE AUDITION Somalia | Narrative | 2015 | 4 min. Director: Zak Salad The Audition portrays the narrative of two Black Actors who go on an audition for a tv series, they are subjected to numerous negative stereotypes and various versions of racial profiling. ONE WEEK AND TWO DAYS Sudan | Narrative | 2017 | 20 min. Director: Marwa Zein The relationship of a loving couple is challenged when they were trying to conceive a baby. Big decision should be made by both in such critical times. NOT COVERED Yemen | Narrative | 2017 | 7 min. Director: Ezat Wagdi When the camera becomes a passion, a curse, and at the same time a tool for disclosing the antinomies between Yemen and the rest of the world.WEBSERIES
555 USA | Narrative | 2017 | 40 min. Director: Andrew DeYoung An anthology of eerie, luscious fables set in the cinematic underbelly of Hollywood. Watch as Kate Berlant and John Early morph into different characters that trace the border of comedy and hell. THE GAY AND WONDROUS LIFE OF CALEB GALLO USA | Narrative | 2016 | 40 min. Director: Brian Jordan Alvarez A fast-paced, fringe-meets-mainstream miniseries examining a group of young friends desperate for love. VERY ANIMATED PEOPLE USA | Narrative | 2016 | 4 min. Director: Joseph Bennet An animated series featuring comedians telling stories from their lives set to animation. OUR HAPPY APOCALYPSE USA | Narrative | 2017 | 15 min. Director: Tyler Manzo In a post-apocalyptic bay area, a group of drifters are all looking for an object of great power known only as ‘The Chest’. THE DRUNK LONELY WIVES BOOK CLUB USA | Narrative | 2016 | 19 min. Director: Mary Lou Belli When four neighbors found a ladies-only book club in 1963, friendships are formed and broken, secrets are revealed, social conventions are challenged, and juicy discussions are had — few of which have anything to do with the monthly book! THREE TREMBLING CITIES Iran | Narrative | 2016 | 8 min. Director: Arthur Vincie An intimate portrait of the inner lives and daily struggles of the immigrants that make NYC’s heart tremble with hope. FRANKIE + EMMA UK | Narrative | 2017 | 3 min. Director: Emily Seale-Jones Scatty, passionate, permanently broke, impulsive and accident-prone, the two girls lead each other in and out of a series of tight holes in which sometimes friendship and mutual support cause more problems than they solve. LIFE COACHED USA | Narrative | 2016 | 16 min. Director: Chloe Lenihan A renowned NYC Life Coach struggles to follow the advice she gives her clients on a daily basis. GOD’S 17 Australia | Narrative | 2017 | 10 min. Director: Nir Shelter God’s 17 is a web series about a community of well-meaning religious people and revolves around the group’s founders; Brother Aaron and Sister Tammy. IN ABSENTIA USA | Narrative | 2017 | 12 min. Directors: Jessica Silvetti, Ethan Kogan The series focuses on characters confronted with the absence of both the material and intangible.The series focuses on characters confronted with the absence of both the material and intangible. CTRL ALT DEL USA | Narrative | 2017 | 3 min. Directors: Margaret Katch & Roni Geva Character anthology web series set in an abortion clinic. It’s a comedy! Based on real interviews, created by women, shot by women, with an all-woman crew. CRYSTAL USA | Narrative | 2016 | 4 min. Director: Crystal Correa Crystal, newly-single workaholic, decides to avoid dealing with her breakup which ends with a sticky result. FAKERS USA | Narrative | 2017 | 7 min. Director: Ryan Mitchel Fakers is an indie web series that highlights and celebrates the absurdity of New York City. BECCA ON CALL USA | Narrative | 2016 | 15 min. Director: Jenness Rouse, Matt Draper Aspiring authoress, Becca C. Johnson, dreams of becoming the next Jane Austen of the 21st century. OHNI CASE FILES USA | Documentary | 2017 | 18 min. Director: Aimee Galicia Torres Ohni Case Files is a medical docuseries about the surgical team at Osborne Head and Neck Institute. Each episode tells a unique story about the doctors and the patients they treat. MY FRIEND D-RONE USA | Narrative | 2016 | 9 min. Director: Jack Martin A socially awkward techie’s perfectly mundane life gets flipped upside down when a sentient, sassy drone arrives in the mail. NEW MOMMIES USA | Narrative | 2017 | 9 min. Director: Matthew Mullen, Boris Undorf New Mommies explores the lives of a freshly cuckolded odd couple as they begin their quest to find “new mommies” for their beloved pets. THE FEMINIST COOKING SHOW USA | Narrative | 2017 | 1 min. Director: Lauren Keating A Food Network frame on Broad City living. POT LUCK Australia | Narrative | 2016 | 8 min. Director: Ness Simmons Three friends make a pact which turns their weekly Pot Luck dinners into a search for love. Or not. OCEAN PARKWAY USA | Narrative | 2016 | 5 min. Director: Nicole Haran Fresh from a major tragedy, a downwardly mobile family of four—five if you count New Guy, the cat—is starting over in a borrowed, temporary home. UNDERGRADS USA | Narrative | 2016 | 8 min. Director: Zoe Robyn After a summer under the thumb of their parents two best friends are ready to catch up on all the TV that they missed; however, after moving in with their least favorite people in the world they find out their goal is further away than they thought. They decide to go on a journey to get the free television they feel they deserve. DROPPING THE SOAP USA | Narrative | 2017 | 12 min. Director: Ellie Kanner Shit’s about to get real for the cast and crew of the long-running (awful) soap-opera “Collided Lives” when new Executive Producer Olivia Vanderstein (Jane Lynch) shows up to shake things up.
-
Tommy Swerdlow’s A THOUSAND JUNKIES To Open DTLA Film Festival + Feature Films Lineup
[caption id="attachment_24667" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] A Thousand Junkies[/caption]
The 9th annual DTLA Film Festival will kick off on Thursday, September 21st with the Los Angeles premiere of A Thousand Junkies, the feature film directorial debut from multi-hyphenate Tommy Swerdlow (Cool Runnings, Little Giants, and Snow Dogs), who directed and co-wrote the film and co-stars with Blake Heron and TJ Bowen, who shares a writing credit. In A Thousand Junkies features three junkies named for the actors playing them, crisscross Los Angeles in search of relief, considering increasingly reckless options in the pursuit of a score, and coming across all sorts of odd characters along the way. The film will be released theatrically by The Orchard later this year.
The Festival, taking place September 21 to 30 at L.A. LIVE, announced its feature films including all documentary and narrative feature-length films in competition. In keeping with this year’s theme – “Movies. Not walls” – the festival will host the first Enemy Nations Film Series. This series will present films from the countries labeled by immigration initiatives and Presidential tweets as homes to enemies of the state.
From The Orchard is The Work by directors Jairus Mcleary and Gethin Aldous, a powerful documentary set inside a single room in Folsom State Prison (California), which follows three level-four convicts as they participate in a four-day, innovative group therapy retreat. Rounding out the trio from The Orchard is Super Dark Times, Kevin Phillips’ harrowing, meticulously observed look at teenage age lives.
Continuing with the dark side, Most Beautiful Island explores the unforgettable and decidedly sinister day in the life of a young woman immigrant struggling to leave behind a mysterious past as she copies with life New York City. Ana Asensio directs and stars in this psychological thriller, which nabbed this year’s SXSW Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize and will be released later this year by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
In Kasra Farahani’s Tilt, Joe is a filmmaker making a definitive documentary about the dark side of America’s post WW2 “golden age.” However, he soon finds himself falling down the rabbit hole of self-doubt and paranoia. In a similar vein Erik Nelson with A Gray State has created a chilling portrait of real-life alt right personality David Crowley as he struggles to complete his opus film project.
Adults struggling with children in their lives is at the heart of several of this year’s narrative features. In Adam Cushman’s Restraint a young married woman’s mental health begins to deteriorate as she attempts to adapt to life in suburbia with her controlling husband and his 9-year-old daughter. In Zach Brown’s Hard Surfaces (formerly Moleskin Diary) life in the fast lane for an artist-photographer suddenly grinds to a halt when he unexpectedly is left in sole custory of his 9-year-old niece.
In Jorge Xolalpa, Jr.’s Blue Line Station a high school couple have a child of their own on its way as they struggle with the best solution for an unwanted pregnancy. In Christopher J. Hansen’s Blur Circle, to be released later this year by Indie Rights, a mother desperately wants to find her missing child, even it means accepting help from a man with a shrouded past.
On the lighter side of relationships, in Jade Jenise Dixon’s Dog Park, also an Indie Rights upcoming release, it’s a canine to the rescue as a group of twenty-somethings struggle with the dating game. In Michael Ferrell’s Laura Gets A Cat, an unemployed writer considers what to do with her unexciting boyfriend while jumping into an affair with a performance artist, all fuel for your vivid imaginary life.
Striking a similar tone but in the context of a documentary, The Dating Project by Jonathan Cipiti confronts the eye-opening statistics that today in America fully half of all adults are single – a far higher percentage than with past generations. Five college-age single Millennials confront their own lack of success in finding a mate in this eye-opening look at dating in the age of social media.
The havoc wreaked by social media is reflected in two of the festival’s rom coms. In director David Tyson Lam’s Viral Beauty our protagonist simply wanted a date. She got a million subscribers, instead. Sloan Copeland’s Life Hack is a humorous but cautionary about privacy and cyber threats in the digital age. The take away? Cover your webcam.
On the other hand Gigi Gorgeous is one girl who ain’t complainin’ about the power of the world wide web. In This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous the life and history of the eponymous Internet superstar is explored in a poignant and inspiring documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, USA).
Could video games be a contributing factor to Millennials’ singleness? Who cares! In Jeremy Snead’s multi-episodic documentary Unlocked: The World Of Games Revealed everybody involved in all levels of video gaming from creators to players certainly seems to be having a helluva good time. Ditto, all those involved in that other counter culture revolving around music audio cassette tapes. In Zachary Taylor, Georg Petzold and Seth Smoot’s Cassette: A Documentary Mix Tape rabid mix tapes fans, including the likes of Henry Rollins, share what makes this once forgotten and now beloved blast-from-the-past so very au courant.
Yes, nostalgia for the music of the Eighties is part of the appeal of mix tapes. This same nostalgia is captured in Ellen Goldfarb’s Dare To Be Different, a look back at WLIR, the pioneering Long Island, N.Y. radio station that helped to pave the way for new wave and punk, and launch the careers of everyone from Blondie to Joan Jett. (Oh, did we mention Prince, U2 and Madonna were also heard first in the U.S. on the WLIR airwaves?)
The past meets the future in the “lost” 1938 screwball comedy set in the future of 2018 in Jamie Greenberg’s Future ’38. Confused? All will be revealed in this highly original satire that wowed the crowds at Slamdance earlier this year. Gabriel Cruz Rivas and Rodrigo Guardiola’s gaze is firmly fixed in the present in his documentary Zoe: Panoramas, an introspective look inside one of Latin America’s biggest rock bands.
The festival’s signature curated film series this year is entitled Enemy Nations, which refers to how whole nations of people suddenly became identified by the highest levels of the U.S. government as anti-American. The series presents a selection from each of these seven countries in an opportunity for you, the audience, to decide for yourself if the enemy is from beyond the borders, or within.
The series includes Shiva Sanjari’s Here The Seats Are Vacant, a stunning portrayal of Iran’s first female director, who herself became an enemy of her nation with the rise of the Islamic Revolution. Also part of the series is Avo Kaprealian’s Houses Without Doors, a documentary shot surreptitiously by director with a small camera from the balcony of his home on the Syrian front line. The camera records the dramatic changes in his neighborhood and his own family. Five short films, which will be announced later, are part of the series as well.
Forbidden Cuba is the first American feature film shot after the thawing of diplomatic relations between the island nation and the U.S. Art Jones’ picture is a cautionary tale about an American businessman who travels to Cuba to retrieve an executive gone rogue, only to have his own eyes opened to the beauty and vibrant culture of the country.
In Sea Gypsies: The Far Side Of The World filmmaker Nico Edwards sets off for his own adventure as part of a motley crew of amateurs and seasoned sailors attempting the nearly impossible and certainly risky goal of traversing the ocean between New Zealand and Patagonia by way of Antarctica in a sailboat – in the dead of winter. Yes, in the Digital Age real-life adventure is yours for the taking IF you’re willing to pursue it.
Water is also the subject of two more documentary films screening at the festival. In John Hopkins’ Bluefin, fresh from its U.S. premiere at Santa Barbara Film Festival earlier this year, the plight of a magnificent oceanic creature, which unfortunately is best known as a mainstay of sushi, is explored from different perspectives. It’s fresh water and the plight of humans in developing countries who lack it that is explored in Brian Wood’s A World Without Water. This special screening and event will be co-hosted by Los Angeles-based PH8, a NGO with international outreach.
Rounding out the festival’s feature film line-up are two documentaries about the impact of encroaching civilization on precious forest land and its wildlife. Mónica Alvarez Franco’s Cloud Forest – which boasts stunning cinematography – documents the people of a small community in Mexico who are the guardians of one of the ecosystems most at risk in country. Tony Lee’s The Cat That Changed America is about a bona fide Hollywood star. P22 is the most famous lion in America, a cougar who lives in Griffith Park, and this is his amazing story.
A final note about a late entry to the festival. VAXXED: From Cover-up to Controversy was a feature-length documentary invited to make its world premiere at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival when the screening was abruptly cancelled — the only film ever pulled from the festival’s line-up. Soon after, Robert DeNiro in his guise as Tribeca’s co-founder went on national television to proclaim he regretted his festival’s decision and urged the viewing public to go see the film, which by then had entered theatrical release. The man at the center of that film, medical researcher and author Andrew Wakefield, is also the focus of The Pathological Optimist, a biopic about the former medical doctor whose discovery of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism profoundly changed his life and challenged medical orthodoxy that all vaccines were safe for all children. In her film, which is making its Los Angeles theatrical premiere during DTLA Film Festival, director Miranda Bailey weaves a delicate portrait of a man who is both revered and vilified by millions, a full-access look at the man at the center of one of the biggest medical and media controversies of our times.
“One of the missions of our nonprofit film festival is to reflect the rich ethnic-cultural diversity and creative free spirit of DTLA and its surrounding environs. We believe our audiences will agree that this year’s line-up wholeheartedly embraces that mandate,” said Greg Ptacek, festival director.
The complete list of announced feature film presentations at the 9th DTLA Film Festival follows
2017 DTLA Film Festival | Feature Films
BLUE LINE STATION Director: Jorge Xolalpa Jr. Country: USA, Running Time: 80″ A high school couple embarks on an unusual journey to planned parenthood, in order to find the best solution to an unwanted pregnancy. BLUEFIN Director: John Hopkins Country: USA, Running Time: 53″ In the stunning documentary Bluefin, director John Hopkins crafts a tale of epic stakes set in the “tuna capital of the world.” Filmed in North Lake, Prince Edward Island, Canada, the film explores the baffling mystery of why the normally wary bluefin tuna no longer fear humans. BLUR CIRCLE Director: Christopher J. Hansen Country: USA, Running Time: 92″ Jill Temple is a single mother still grieving the loss of her young son after he disappeared two years ago. Unable to face the possibility that she has lost him forever, she pursues every lead and meets Burton Rose, a man with a shrouded past. CASSETTE A DOCUMENTARY MIX TAPE Director: Zachary Taylor, Georg Petzold and Seth Smoot Country: USA, Running Time: 92″ Cassette inventor Lou Ottens digs through his past to figure out why the audiotape won’t die. Rock veterans like Henry Rollins, Thurston Moore, and Ian MacKaye join a legion of young bands releasing music on tape to push Lou along on his journey to remember. THE CAT THAT CHANGED AMERICA Director: Tony Lee Country: USA, Running Time: 75″ P22 is the most famous cat in America, a mountain lion who lives in Griffith Park in the middle of LA. This is his amazing story. CLOUD FOREST Director: Mónica Alvarez Franco Country: MEXICO, Running Time: 90″ The people of a small community in Veracruz are the guardians of one of the ecosystems facing the most risk in the country: the cloud forest. They are trying to redesign their own culture: needs, food, education and relationship with other people and with nature, searching for a simpler and sustainable life. DARE TO BE DIFFERENT Director: Ellen Goldfarb Country: USA, Running Time: 93″ A wonderfully nostalgic look back at WLIR 92.7, the Long Island-based radio station on the cutting edge of music throughout the 1980s. Going rogue, the station defied the record industry and played global imports before their release by literally picking up the singles at the airport,rushing back to the studio and spinning them live. THE DATING PROJECT Director: Jonathan Cipiti Country: USA, Running Time: 70″ 50% of America is single. The way people seek and find love has radically changed. The trends of hanging out, hooking up, texting and social media have created a dating deficit. Dating is now…outdated. Follow 5 single people, ages 18 to 40, as they navigate this new landscape. DOG PARK Director: Jade Jenise Dixon Country: USA, Running Time: 91″ The romantic tribulations of a group of Toronto twenty-somethings whose relationships with their dogs are more stable and long-lasting than their romances with people. FORBIDDEN CUBA Director: Art Jones Country: USA, Running Time: 81″ The first American feature made in Cuba since the revolution of 1959. Part ‘Local Hero’ and ‘Hearts of Darkness,’ it’s a cautionary tale about capitalism and the state of the American soul. STORY: An American businessman travels to Cuba to retrieve an executive gone rogue, and finds his eyes opened to the beauty and vibrant culture of Cuba, challenging his corporate directives, his identity and everything he has known. FUTURE ’38 Director: Jamie Greenberg Country: USA, Running Time: 75″ A 1938 screwball comedy set in the far future year of 2018. A GRAY STATE Director: Erik Nelson Country: USA, Running Time: 93″ In 2010, David Crowley worked on a film about a future in which the government crushes civil liberties. When Crowley and his wife and child are found dead in 2014, conspiracy theorists speculate that they have been assassinated by the government. HARD SURFACES Director: Zach Brown Country: USA, Running Time: 89″ Adrian is a self-made man, despite the tragedy of his parents dying when he was a child. He is a famous photographer who has earned a following for his provocative style. Life appears to perfect until his sister Samantha suddenly dies, leaving him as the sole guardian of her 9-year-old daughter Maddy, whom he has never even met. Even while he clings to his life in the fast lane, he realizes everything must change if Maddy is to avoid the same pain he suffered as a child. HERE THE SEATS ARE VACANT Director: Shiva Sanjari Country: IRAN, Running Time: 81″ This is the story of a relentless spirit that refuses to be broken. The Iranian filmmaker known simply as Shahrzad in 1977 became the first female director in Iran after a successful career as a singer-dancer-actress. Two years later the Iran Revolution roared across the nation, and it has no room for a self-made woman like Shahrzad. The government never let her work again. Worse, she was imprisoned where she became mentally unraveled, eventually ending up in a mental institution. Today, she is 72 years old and dealing with a life in a small village in Iran. Oh, but her memories are wholly intact. This poignant documentary includes fantastic archival film footage of Shahrzad at the height other career. HOUSES WITHOUT DOORS Director: Avo Kaprealian Country: SYRIA, Running Time: 90″ The film portrays the changes in the life of an Armenian family on Aleppo’s frontline in Al Midan, an area that brought shelter to the persecuted Armenians 100 years ago and today to many displaced Syrians. From the balcony of his home, the director films with a small camera the changes in his neighbourhood and his own family, interweaving his images with extracts from classical films to illustrate the parallels between the Armenian genocide and Syrians’ reality today. LAURA GETS A CAT Director: Michael Ferrell Country: USA, Running Time: 83″ An unemployed writer in New York City, tries to juggle an unexciting boyfriend, an affair with a performance artist, and a vivid imaginary life. LIFE HACK Director: Sloan Copeland Country: USA, Running Time: 90″ A humorous, cautionary tale about cyber threats in the digital age. Cover your webcam. MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND Director: Ana Asensio Country: USA, Running Time: 80″ Luciana is a young immigrant woman is struggling to make ends meet in New York while striving to escape her past. As her day unfolds, she is whisked, physically and emotionally, through a series of troublesome, unforeseeable extremes. Before her day is done, she inadvertently finds herself a central participant in a cruel game. Lives are placed at risk, while psyches are twisted and broken for the perverse entertainment of a privileged few. THE PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST Director: Miranda Bailey Country: USA, Running Time: 106″ In the center of the recent Tribeca Film Festival scandal surrounding his film, VAXXED: From Cover-up to Controversy stands Andrew Wakefield, discredited and stripped of his medical license for his infamous study suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine, bowel disease, and autism. The Pathological Optimist takes us into the inner sanctum of Wakefield and his family from 2011- 2016 as he fights for his day in court in a little-known defamation case against the British Medical Journal. Wakefield attempts to clear his name as the media-appointed Father of the Anti-vaccine movement. Director Miranda Bailey weaves a delicate portrait of a man who is THE PATHOLOGICAL OPTIMIST utilizing a never-before-seen, full access look at the man at the center of one of the biggest medical and media controversies of our times. RESTRAINT Director: Adam Cushman Country: USA, Running Time: 95″ Angela Burroughs has been submerging her violent impulses for years. After moving to the suburbs with her controlling new husband and his 9-year-old daughter, Angela starts to unravel. She becomes obsessed with a short story called The Yellow Wallpaper and begins to see parallels between her own life and the life within the story. As her husband Jeff remains oblivious to her emerging demons, Angela plunges deeper and deeper into her own dark reality. SEA GYPSIES: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD Director: Nico Edwards Country: USA, Running Time: 77″ The story of a small group of modern seafaring gypsies, following them as they strike out across the largest expanse of uninhabited geography on earth, in search of adventure, awe and whatever else lies at the far side of the world. SUPER DARK TIMES Director: Kevin Phillips Country: USA, Running Time: 100″ A harrowing but meticulously observed look at teenage lives in the era prior to the Columbine High School massacre. THIS IS EVERYTHIG: GIGI GORGEOUS Director: Barbara Kopple Country: USA, Running Time: 91″ Are there limits to your love for your family? One family’s acceptance is tested when a champion diver, destined for the Olympics, announces they’re transitioning from male to female and invites their YouTube followers along for every moment. It’s a story about unconditional love and finding the courage to be yourself. A THOUSAND JUNKIES Director: Tommy Swerdlow Country: USA, Running Time: 75″ Things grow more and more desperate, and ridiculous, as three heroin addicts drive all over Los Angeles in search of what they need. TILT Director: Kasra Farahani Country: USA, Running Time: 99″ Joe is working on a political documentary about America’s “Golden Age,” with the support of his wife Joanne. However, he begins to descend into paranoia and roams the streets at night in this haunting psychological thriller. UNLOCKED: THE WORLD OF GAMES REVEALED Director: Jeremy Snead Country: USA, Running Time: 90″ Video games have gone from an obscure science experiment in the early 1960’s to the biggest entertainment medium on the planet. Unlocked is a groundbreaking documentary from director Jeremy Snead that provides firsthand stories by industry icons, celebrities, consumers, and field experts on the culture, technology, history and future of the video game industry. VIRAL BEAUTY Director: David Tyson Lam Country: USA, Running Time: 90″ She wanted a date. She got a million subscribers instead. THE WORK Directors: Jairus Mcleary and Gethin Aldous Country: USA, Running Time: 89″ Set inside a single room in Folsom Prison, three men from the outside participate in a four-day group-therapy retreat with a group of incarcerated men for a real look at the challenges of rehabilitation. A WORLD WITHOUT WATER Director: Brian Woods Country: USA, Running Time: 80″ Every day 3900 children die as a result of insufficient or unclean water supplies. ‘A World Without Water’ tells of the personal tragedies behind the mounting privatization of water supplies. ZOE: PANORAMAS Director: Gabriel Cruz Rivas and Rodrigo Guardiola Country: MEXICO, Running Time: 89″ A unique and introspective look inside one of Latin America’s biggest rock bands: Zoé. The film takes you on a contemplative and audiovisual journey through one of the bands decisive years.