Los Angeles Film Festival

We will be moving this server to a new hosting location. Expect intermittent downtimes while we move during the holidays.  We will be hosted on the new Hukilau framework in the future.

I wanted to take this opportunity, now that the festival has concluded, to thank everyone who came to this website and those who subscribed to our feed via iTunes, podcast alley and the numerous other places that picked up our podcasts. Now that the festival is over, we will take a short time to sort, prioritize,  produce and release some of the many hours of audio and video archives we accumulated during the course of the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival. Thanks to the LAFF, FIND and Pilotlite teams for making this a succesfful and educational festival and podcast channel. Stay tuned. There is more to come throughout the year!  -Joseph Matheny

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Scenes from the closing night red carpet of the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival for the movie, Ponyo: Closing Night: .

Directed By: Hayao Miyazaki
Directors, English Voice Talent: John Lasseter, Brad Lewis, Peter Sohn
Producer: Toshio Suzuki
Producers, English Version: Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Steve Alpert
English Screenplay By: Melissa Mathison
Cinematographer: Atsushi Okui
Editors: Hayao Miyazaki, Takeshi Seyama
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Noah Cyrus, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Frankie Jonas, Cloris Leachman, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin, Betty White
Music: Joe Hisaishi, Fujioka Fujimaki

* Trailer

In Ponyo, a young and overeager goldfish named Ponyo decides to leave her underwater world behind after making friends with a five-year-old boy who lives in a small coastal village. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” Ponyo comes to the big screen as imagined by legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, whose credits include films Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle.

Ponyo has the classic storytelling sensibilities of a timeless fairy tale, and the visuals—entirely hand drawn—reflect the Academy Award®-winning Miyazaki’s signature and unmistakable style. The director’s attention to detail is what makes Ponyo yet another Miyazaki masterpiece.

With its child’s view of an enchanting world and a voice cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Noah Cyrus, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Cloris Leachman, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin, Betty White, and Frankie Jonas, Ponyo is an absolute delight for all ages.

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Scenes from the red carpet at the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival for the movie, Black Dynamite.

Directed By: Scott Sanders
Executive Producers: Deanna & James Berkeley
Producers: Jon Steingart, Jenny Weiner Steingart
Screenwriters: Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, Scott Sanders
Cinematographer: Shawn Maurer
Editor: Adrian Younge
Cast: Michael Jai White, Tommy Davidson, Arsenio Hall
Music: Adrian Younge

Live DJ Set by Suckapunch

Let me tell you a story about Black Dynamite. He’s an irresistible silky smooth brother who can turn stone-cold, kung fu fighting machine in a hot second. Ghetto godfather, he keeps the thugs and low-lifes in check on the streets and the lovely ladies and honeys mad with heat. You just know when he hears the devastating news that some hustlers iced his younger brother, someone’s going to pay. But then he stumbles on an even bigger travesty — someone is slanging smack to the neighborhood orphanage! With a strong sexy revolutionary sister at his side, he embodies the mythical bad-ass legend and turns his dynamite toward saving the crumbling ’hood in the grips of “the man.”

Somewhere between homage and send-up of the sweet blaxploitation films of the ’70s, Black Dynamite is right on the money in reconstructing the groovy aesthetic and flare. It revels in delivering the swagger, funkadelic soundtrack and titillating action that made these films memorable, while also highlighting the social and political subtext from which the genre was born. Can you dig it?

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Scenes from the red carpet at the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival for the movie, The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia

Directed By: Julien Nitzberg
Executive Producers: Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville, Priya Swaminathan, Jeff Yapp
Producer: Storm Taylor
Cinematographers: David Bird, Dominic Giordano, Michael Kenneth Sydenstricker II
Editor: Ben Daughtrey
Music: Deke Dickerson
Featuring: The White family

* Trailer

Shoot-outs, robberies, gas-huffing, drug dealing, pill popping, murders, and tap dancing are just a few of the group activities in this shocking and outlandish year-in-the-life documentary about the White family of Boone County, West Virginia’s most notorious and surly family. Featuring dance performances from Jesco White and Hank Williams III.

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