2018 LA Film Festival Complete Film Offerings With Synopsis

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Category: Entertainment News

Published on Tuesday, 31 July 2018 21:30

Shorts (41)

• Agua Viva – USA(DIRECTOR Alexa Lim Haas) – A Chinese manicurist in Miami attempts to describe feelings she doesn’t have the words for.

• Audition – USA (DIRECTOR Richard Van) – Unable to find a sitter, an aspiring actress has no choice but to drag her three-year-old son to her audition.

• Beastly Things – USA (DIRECTOR Zev Chevat) – A young artist encounters a vicious group of local schoolchildren and learns what beastly behavior truly means.

• Black 14 – USA (DIRECTOR Darius Clark Monroe) – An archival social study examining the media coverage of a 1969 racial protest at the University of Wyoming.

• Burn Bridge – USA/England (DIRECTOR Rhys Jones) – Hopelessly infatuated with his clueless best friend, an adolescent boy in North Yorkshire explores his sexuality and acts out with destructive behavior.

• Caroline – USA (DIRECTORS Celine Held, Logan George) – A precocious six-year-old is faced with a big responsibility on a hot Texas day.

• Cheer Up, Baby – USA (DIRECTOR Adinah Dancyger) – A young woman who has been sexually assaulted by a stranger on the subway is rendered with psychological menace and sensory dislocation in this elliptical tale.

• Counterfeit Kunkoo – India (DIRECTOR Reema Sengupta) – In a city that houses millions, Smita fights a stubborn cultural bias while trying to rent a house in middle-class Mumbai.

• Coyote – Switzerland (DIRECTOR Lorenz Wunderle) – After wolves attack his family, a coyote goes on a vision quest of revenge.

• Cross My Heart – Jamaica/USA (DIRECTOR Sontenish Myers) – An American teenage girl visits her family in Jamaica and uncovers a secret that changes the way she sees the people she loves.

• Delay – Iran/Italy (DIRECTOR Ali Asgari) – A man and his two children miss their flight and while waiting for the next flight, undergo a transformative moment.

• The Earth is Humming – USA (DIRECTOR Garrett Bradley) – In Japan earthquake preparedness is a way of life, and a full-blown industry.

• Falling – France (DIRECTOR Benjamin Vu) – In 1994 France, a clever, gay, much-bullied young esthete and his naïve, athletic classmate develop an unexpected intimacy when they’re paired up for a high school presentation.

• Hair Wolf – USA (DIRECTOR Mariama Diallo) – In a black hair salon in gentrifying Brooklyn, the residents fend off a strange new horror: white women sucking the lifeblood from black culture.

• Hierophany – USA (DIRECTOR Kevin Contento) – A Florida boy comes in contact with the sacred while living in the margins of the South.

• Intercourse – Sweden (DIRECTOR Jonatan Etzan) – A passing joke between a couple blurs the lines and brings them to terms with how it has changed their relationship.

• Jeom – USA (DIRECTOR Kangmin Kim) – A father and son, who share the same big birthmark on their butt wage war against this genetic blemish.

• Kevlar – Sweden (DIRECTOR Tuna Özer) – A young man from the projects outside of Stockholm borrows his friend’s jacket to impress a hip city girl and winds up at a party in a strange land.

• Ladders – USA (DIRECTOR Andrew Stephen Lee) – The bright future facing a smart, ambitious Dominican teen becomes clouded with doubt following a pointed interaction at a fundraising gala.

• Libre – USA (DIRECTOR Anna Barsan) – Undocumented immigrants forced to spend months in detention turn to private companies to secure their release on bond in this gripping documentary.

• Lotus – Iran (DIRECTOR Mohammadreza Vatandoust) – After a controlled flood an old woman is left to gaze from her window at the island she’s forbidden to visit, longing for the object of her affection.

• Mud – USA (DIRECTOR Shaandiin Tome) – On her last day of life, a woman faces the inescapable remnants of alcoholism, family and culture.

• Nevada – USA (DIRECTOR Emily Ann Hoffman) – A young couple’s romantic weekend getaway is interrupted by a birth control mishap in this stop-motion animated comedy.

• One Leg In, One Leg Out – Canada (DIRECTOR Lisa Rideout) – A lively, strong-willed sex worker struggles to move from the streets and into a career as a social worker, hoping to help fellow trans sex workers find acceptance.

• The Passage – USA (DIRECTOR Kitao Sakurai) – Fleeing a pair of mysterious agents sends a dim-witted mute on a series of absurd misadventures.

• Room 140 – USA (DIRECTOR Priscilla Gonzalez Sainz) – Immigrants just released from detention centers spend their first night in Oakland at a motel paid for by a local pastor.

• Roya – USA (DIRECTOR Shaina Pakravan) – On the night of a relative’s engagement party, an image conscious Iranian-American mother clashes with her free-spirited teenage daughter.

• Scratch – Spain (DIRECTOR David Valero) – A young DJ with a cognitive disability has trouble understanding the violent word around him; his actions subvert societal concepts of perpetrator and victim, apology and forgiveness.

• Shadow Animals – Sweden (DIRECTOR Jerry Carlsson) – A young girl follows her parents to a party where the adults’ behavior becomes increasingly strange.

• The Shift – USA (DIRECTOR Elivia Genny Shaw) – For San Francisco’s 911 dispatchers, the city is hard to escape.

• Sin Cielo – USA (DIRECTOR Jianna Maarten) – Two teenagers pursue young love in the borderlands where life under cartel violence may be inescapable.

• Skip Day – USA (DIRECTORS Ivete Lucas, Patrick Bresnan) – With graduation approaching, a group of high school seniors take a day at the beach to revel in the joys of being young in an increasingly unsteady world.

• Swedi – Sweden (DIRECTOR Sosi Chamoun) – A woman in a grocery store contends with a clerk who won’t leave her alone in this one-take shot.

• This Magnificent Cake! – Belgium/France/Netherlands (DIRECTORS Emma De Swaef, Marc James Roels) – Set in colonial Africa in the late 19th century, this breathtaking stop-motion epic examines colonialism through five different stories.

• This, My Favorite Mural – USA (DIRECTOR Michael Arcos) – The Latinx immigrant experience in Louisiana is explored through the eyes of a German woman who becomes obsessed with finding the artist who painted a tire shop mural.

• The Things You Think I’m Thinking – Canada (DIRECTOR Sherren Lee) – On his first date since a devastating accident, a burn victim throws himself back into the world of relationships and the fear of allowing love back into his life.

• True Love in Pueblo Textil – USA (DIRECTOR Horatio Baltz) – A young girl living in the Cuban countryside describes how it feels to be stricken with the world’s oldest infliction: love.

• War Paint – USA (DIRECTOR Katrelle Kindred) – For a bright South LA teen, what should be a happy 4th of July weekend becomes an unexpected lesson in the stark realities of power and racism.

• Weekends – USA (DIRECTOR Trevor Jimenez) – A young boy shuffles between the homes of his recently divorced parents in this surreal hand-animated film set in 1980s Toronto.

• While I Yet Live – USA (DIRECTOR Maris Curran) – African-American quilters from Alabama talk about love, religion and the fight for civil rights as they continue the tradition of quilting that originally brought them together.

• Wild Wild West: A Beautiful Rant By Mark Bradford – USA (DIRECTOR Dime Davis) – The origin of artists is explored through paper, percussion and one provocative creative.

Web Series (10)

• Avant-Guardians – USA (DIRECTOR Clarence Williams IV) – A woke(ish) guardian angel to the third Black President goes a little off her rocker and is mandated by God to see a therapist angel.

• Flatbush Misdemeanors – USA (DIRECTORS Dan Perlman, Kevin Iso) – Two longtime friends adjust to their new surroundings in the brash environment of Flatbush, Brooklyn. Against a quickly ticking clock, they hilariously scramble to right a mistake that could end them both.

• Fresh – Australia (DIRECTOR Grant Scicluna) – A diverse range of characters make their living in an open Australian market. Their differences pull them apart and draw them together.

• Kiki And Kitty – Australia (DIRECTOR Catriona Mackenzie) – The adventures of a young, Native Aboriginal woman in a big, white world where her vagina is a big, Native woman and her best friend!

• Otis – USA (DIRECTOR Alexander Etseyatse) – A young, mentally unstable man attempts to win back the affection of his ex-fiancée and daughter.

• Petal & Paint – USA(DIRECTOR Bradley Smith) – Illustrator and host Mike Dutton hops on his bike and meets up with fellow illustrator Sophia Foster-Dimino to find inspiration, adventure and new perspectives.

• Psusy – New Zealand (DIRECTOR Anna Duckworth) – Two close friends drag us through their controversial, inappropriate, but always playfully feminist world.

• Tracy Buckles – USA (DIRECTOR Robin Nystrom) – A young woman becomes the victim of a despicable curse that prevents other people from hearing her voice. She joins forces with a down-and-out vagabond and a bumbling wizard in order to break free from the evil sorcery.

• Revenge Tour–USA (DIRECTOR Andrew Carter) – He’s been cheated on, living in a friend’s living room and stuck at a dead-end job. But one night he finds an unlikely stress-reliever—rapping.

• Robits – USA (DIRECTOR Christopher Parks) – This series follows the funny and nonsensical misgivings of three robots living in a post-A.I. world.