The LA Film Festival was an annual film festival that was held in Los Angeles , California, and usually took place in June. It showcased independent, international, feature, documentary and short films, as well as web series, music videos, episodic television and panel conversations.
12-681: The LA Film Festival was a qualifying festival in all categories for Film Independent's Spirit Awards . It was also a qualifying festival for the short films categories of the Academy Awards. Since 2001, it had been run by the nonprofit Film Independent, which since 1985 has also produced the annual Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica . The festival began as the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival in 1995. The LAIFF ran for six years until it
24-439: A nominating committee. In 1985, Peter Coyote and Jamie Lee Curtis presented winners with a Plexiglas pyramid designed by Carol Bosselman, which contain a suspended shoestring, printed with sprocket holes, representing the shoestring budgets of independent films. The Reel Gold Award, also designed by Bosselman, was given to Steve Wachtel for allowing Independent Features Project/West continuing free use of his screening room. It
36-581: A variety of panels, seminars, and free screenings. It also screened short films created by high school students as a part of the Future Filmmakers program. Films submitted to the Festival were reviewed by Film Independent's programming department, which evaluated each film. Awards are given out in the following categories at the conclusion of the festival: Independent Spirit Awards The Independent Spirit Awards , originally known as
48-724: The FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards , and later as the Film Independent Spirit Awards , are awards presented annually in Santa Monica, California , to independent filmmakers . Founded in 1984, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit Awards in 1986. The ceremony is produced by Film Independent, a not-for-profit arts organization that used to produce the LA Film Festival . Film Independent members vote to determine
60-868: The LA Film Festival moved to ArcLight Cinemas in Culver City and Hollywood, California. In 2017, it expanded to ArcLight Cinemas in Santa Monica. In 2018, the LA Film Festival further expanded and added the WGA Theater as a venue. It also partnered with the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts to screen films there. Over the course of nine days, the festival screened nearly 200 features, shorts, and episodes. The event also included world premieres of films,
72-541: The TV section. Current categories Retired categories The Independent Features Project/West was founded by Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas . In 1984 the FINDIE Awards (Friends of Independents) were conceived by Independent Features Project/West board member Jeanne Lucas and Independent Features Project/West President Anne Kimmel and director/writer Sam O'Brien was an event producer. The awards are voted on by
84-557: The bare budgets of independent films. Since 2006, winners receive a metal trophy depicting a bird with its wings spread sitting atop of a pole with the shoestrings from the previous design wrapped around the pole. In 2020, new categories were announced for the 36th Independent Spirit Awards , which would honor the best in television productions and performances. These categories included Best New Scripted Series , Best New Non-Scripted or Documentary Series, Best Male Performance, Best Female Performance , and Best Ensemble Cast. In 2022, it
96-788: The festival moved to the Regal Cinemas at the L.A. Live complex in downtown Los Angeles, with additional screenings at several other downtown venues including the Downtown Independent, the Orpheum Theatre , and the REDCAT Theatre. The Festival also has a long tradition of screenings at the open-air John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood. Free screenings were scheduled at California Plaza , in conjunction with Grand Performances and FIGat7th. In 2016,
108-897: The winners of the Spirit Awards. The awards show is held inside a tent at a parking lot of the beach in Santa Monica, usually on the day before the Academy Awards (since 1999; originally the Saturday before). The show was previously broadcast live on the IFC network in the US until 2023, when it was moved to YouTube , as well as Hollywood Suite in Canada and A&E Latin America . Winners were previously presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing
120-681: Was absorbed into Film Independent in 2018. The first LAIFF took place over the course of five days in a single location: the historic Raleigh Studios in Hollywood . In 1996, the LAIFF expanded to include the Directors Guild of America Building in Hollywood. In 2001, the festival became part of the organization Film Independent (formerly IFP/West). In 2006, the Los Angeles Times became the festival's main media sponsor. In 2010,
132-444: Was announced that gender neutral acting categories would be implemented and that the previous gendered film categories — Male Lead , Female Lead , Male Supporting and Female Supporting — would be retired in favor of a Best Lead Performance and a Best Supporting Performance categories, which would feature 10 nominees each. Other new categories added included Best Breakthrough Performance and Best Lead and Supporting Performance in
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#1732780688353144-633: Was associated with Filmex . In 1986, Bosselman designed and sculpted the Independent Spirit Award statue that is still given out today, using a lost wax bronze casting method. Independent Features Project/West eventually became Film Independent. Dawn Hudson was director of Independent Features Project/West in 1995. Barbara Boyle was Independent Features Project/West president from 1994 to 1999. Independent Spirit Award for Best New Scripted Series The Independent Spirit Award for New Scripted Series (or Best New Series )
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