The 18th annual Los Angeles Film Festival, June 14 to 24, unveiled its lineup this week, announcing the closing film will be Steven Soderbergh's male stripper movie Magic Mike, starring Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey.
Woody Allen's To Rome with Love, starring Penelope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg and Allen, will kick off the event, which premieres People Like Us costarring Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games) and Chris Pine (Star Trek), a family drama directed by Alex Kurtzman, the Transformers screenwriter.
Part of the series of spring film festivals, including SXSW and the San Francisco and Seattle film festivals, the LA Film Fest screens 200 feature films, shorts and music videos from more than 30 countries.
Among the narrative and documentary films, international selections and those in competition, films with a buzz that are making a stop here along the festival circuit include:
• Seeking a Friend for the End of the World starring Steve Carell and Kiera Knightley
• Robot and Frank with Frank Langella and a robot voiced by Peter Sarsgaard
• Neil Young Journeys, a documentary directed by Jonathan Demme
• The Queen of Versailles, a documentary about American billionaires building a Versailles-inspired mansion
Also playing Cannes, the ethereal Beasts of the Southern Wild directed by Benh Zeitlin and the SXSW hit Gimme the Loot directed by Adam Leon, the story of graffiti-writing teens from the Bronx who face off with a rival gang of taggers, join the schedule.
The LA Film Festival is produced by Film Independent, the same outfit that organizes the Spirit Awards.
http://www.lafilmfest.com/
RC