Silver Lake Film Festival
Encyclopedia
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
, music, digital, and other arts in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The Festival was held annually at various venues throughout Los Angeles’ Eastside, showcasing well over 200 narrative features, documentaries and short films. In 2005, in addition to its annual event, SLFF launched a very successful monthly series of short films with curated programs from an international array of filmmakers that is consistently SRO. The 7th annual edition will ran ten days, May 3-12, 2007, and included such varied programming as MP4Fest and MusicFest (two festivals-within-the-festival), along with curated film programs on architecture and design, urban sustainability, and an ASCAP Music Lounge along the lines of those at Tribeca and Sundance Film Festivals.
Mission
Silver Lake Film Festival was created specifically to address the lack of opportunity for truly independent films to be seen by audiences in movie theaters. Its mission has been to reflect a personal vision of the filmmaker, rather than a commercial imperative. Ironically, there had been a dearth of this type of film festival in Los Angeles – the film capital of the world – where the prevailing programs bend to either mainstream studio fare or highly niched markets. In fact, the majority of films screened at the annual festival would otherwise never be seen by Los Angeles audiences in any context -- in theaters, on TV or DVD, etc.Local history
Silver Lake Film Festival’s name was chosen as emblematic of the entire Eastside community of Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, roughly that area between Downtown and Hollywood and including the historic communities of Echo Park, Silver Lake
Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California
Silver Lake is a hilly neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California east of Hollywood and northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Silver Lake is inhabited by a wide variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups, but it is best known as an eclectic gathering of hipsters and the creative class.The...
and Los Feliz. This area is bounded by major movie studios, including NBC Universal
NBC Universal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
and Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, and is the site of the historic birthplace of cinema in Los Angeles. Since their establishment in the early 20th century, Silver Lake and its surrounding environs have had a reputation for avant-garde arts, a pronounced multiculturalism, a large gay and lesbian community, and staunchly progressive politics.
Richard Neutra
Richard Joseph Neutra is considered one of modernism's most important architects.- Biography :Neutra was born in Leopoldstadt, the 2nd district of Vienna, Austria Hungary, on April 8, 1892. He was born into both-Jewish wealthy family...
and John Lautner. In the 1950s the hilly area became known as Red Hills because of all the purported Communists who called it home. Many literary luminaries have also made their homes in Silver Lake, including Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
, Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin was a French-Cuban author, based at first in France and later in the United States, who published her journals, which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death, her erotic literature, and short stories...
and Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles...
.
Boho Heart
More recently, the Silver Lake area has developed an international reputation for urban bohemianism. Artists and audience-goers gravitate to an area filled with alternative music clubs, one-of-a-kind fashion boutiques, art galleries, record and book stores, and a vast array of ethnic cafes and restaurants – the equivalent of the East VillageEast Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
in New York City or San Francisco’s South of Market district. The area is also becoming known nationally for its thriving alternative music scene, and numerous musicians as well as other artists call it home, including Beck
Beck
Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
, the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
and world-famous opera singer Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring a large sound, beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages....
.
Programming
Along with presenting a large number of new films each year via the open call for submission, Silver Lake Film Festival was known internationally for its array of festivals-within-the-festival, and its curated programs, which presented films grouped according to specialized subjects by experts in their fields.Festivals within the festival
From its grass roots origins at the Vista Theatre in Silver Lake, the Festival has continued to expand annually, both in the amount of its content and in its range of arts programming. In its third year (2003), Silver Lake Film Festival launched FringeFest, a fest-within-a-fest committed to presenting the best in experimental and avant-garde video and film, along with presenting live shows of cutting-edge performance artists. In the same year, the Festival introduced MusicFest, a parallel festival showcasing the best of independent, alternative, and progressive musical artists through films and live concerts.In its sixth year (2006), Silver Lake Film Festival debuted MP4Fest. http://www.mp4fest.org,
Machinima
Machinima is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation...
in Los Angeles.
Curated programs
Silver Lake Film Festival’s many curated programs have included the following: “Reel Politik”, a series of documentaries that demonstrated the power of cinema to influence social change, called agitpropAgitprop
Agitprop is derived from agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message....
; “New Croatian Cinema”, curated by Ziggy Mkrich, festival director of the Dubrovnik International Film Festival, and underwritten by the Croatian Ministry of Culture; a tribute to revolutionary spirit Tina Modotti
Tina Modotti
Tina Modotti was an Italian photographer, model, actress, and revolutionary political activist.- Early life :Modotti was born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini in Udine, Friuli, Italy...
; “Green Films,” a slate of environmental documentaries whose executive curator was Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti; “State of the Union,” films on the changing labor movement; and an extensive Fusion Asian cinema
Asian cinema
Asian cinema refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Asia, and is also sometimes known as Eastern cinema. More commonly however, it is used to refer to the cinema of Eastern, Southeastern and Southern Asia. West Asian cinema is sometimes classified as part of Middle...
program, which presented a retrospective of legendary Japanese horror master Nobuo Nakagawa
Nobuo Nakagawa
was a Japanese film director, most famous for the stylized, folk tale-influenced horror films he made in the 1950s and 1960s.-Career:Born in Kyoto, Nakagawa was early on influenced by proletarian literature and wrote amateur film reviews to the Kinema Junpō film magazine. He joined Makino Film...
and award-winning films from festivals in Korea, Hong Kong and India.
Cinema heritage
Annually at every festival, Silver Lake Film Festival has paid tribute to the founding forces of cinema — fitting, since the EdendaleEdendale
Edendale may refer to:*Edendale, former name of Eden Landing, California*Edendale, Los Angeles, California, historical district in Los Angeles*Edendale, Merced County, California, former community*Edendale, New Zealand, town in the Southland region...
neighborhood, between Silver Lake and Echo Park, is where the first Hollywood studios took root. Among those whose work has been spotlighted are Antonio Moreno
Antonio Moreno
Antonio "Tony" Moreno was a notable Spanish-born American actor and film director of the silent film era and through the 1950s.- Biography :...
, Clara Bow
Clara Bow
Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a spunky shopgirl in the film It that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex...
, Baby Peggy, Fatty Arbuckle
Fatty Arbuckle
Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd...
, and Sessue Hayakawa
Sessue Hayakawa
was a Japanese and American Issei actor who starred in American, Japanese, French, German, and British films. Hayakawa was the first and one of the few Asian actors to find stardom in the United States as well as Europe. Between the mid-1910s and the late 1920s, he was as well known as actors...
. The Festival also looks to the present and future, bestowing its Spirit of Silver Lake Award for career achievement in independent cinema on such notables as actors John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly
John Christopher Reilly, Jr. is an American film and theater actor, singer, and comedian. Debuting in Casualties of War in 1989, he is one of several actors whose careers were launched by Brian De Palma. To date, he has appeared in more than fifty films, including three separate films in 2002...
, Laura Dern
Laura Dern
Laura Elizabeth Dern is an American actress, film director and producer. Dern has acted in such films as Smooth Talk , Blue Velvet , Fat Man and Little Boy , Wild at Heart , Jurassic Park and October Sky...
, Mark Ruffalo
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He starred in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Shutter Island, Just Like Heaven, You Can Count on Me and The Kids Are All Right for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best...
, and Julie Delpy
Julie Delpy
Julie Delpy is a French-American actress, director, screenwriter, and singer-songwriter. She studied filmmaking at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and has directed, written, and acted in more than 30 films, including Europa Europa , The Voyager , Three Colors: White , Before Sunrise...
, and filmmakers Allison Anders
Allison Anders
Allison Anders is an American film and television director. Anders has directed many independent films, on which she frequently collaborates with fellow UCLA film school graduate Kurt Voss.-Biography:...
, Charles Burnett
Charles Burnett (director)
Charles Burnett is an African-American film director, film producer, writer, editor, actor, photographer, and cinematographer...
, Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger is an American underground experimental filmmaker, occasional actor and author...
, Rob Nilsson
Rob Nilsson
Rob Nilsson is an American independent film director, writer, and sometimes actor. He has won the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize.-Early life and education:...
, Curtis Harrington
Curtis Harrington
Curtis Harrington was an American film and television director whose work included experimental films, horror films, and episodic television.-Biography:...
and Penelope Spheeris
Penelope Spheeris
Penelope Spheeris is an American director, producer and screenwriter. She is best known as a documentary film director whose works include the trilogy titled The Decline of Western Civilization...
Venues
For the first four years, the Festival was based at the historic Vista Theatre at the corner of Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards—the longest-running freestanding theater in Southern California—and included additional venues in neighboring theaters. In 2005 and 2006, the Festival took place exclusively at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood, a high-profile complex that allowed increased media visibility for its programs. In 2007, Silver Lake Film Festival’s co-directors Kate Marciniak, Greg Ptacek and Saskia Wilson-Brown announced that the heart of the Festival would return to its namesake neighborhood, capitalizing on the resurgence of Silver Lake and Echo Park as entertainment and nightlife loci of note—perfectly reflecting the Festival’s philosophical and pragmatic independence.Key people
- Greg Ptacek
- Roger Mayer
- Kate Marciniak
- Saskia Wilson-Brown
- David Andrusia
- Henry K. Priest
- Charles Belk
- Bianca Bezdek
- Carlos Blumberg De Menezes
- Jenna Didier
- Jason Dollar
- P. David Ebersole
- Ann Friday
- Vinny Gajee
- JoAnn Hanley
- Kelly Hargraves
- Oliver Hess
- Linda Huynh
- Bob Johnson
- Howie Klein
- Mary Ledding