FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tamar Fortgang
213-237-2873 (do not publish)
REDCATpr@calarts.edu

INDEPENDENT LOS ANGELES
A Festival of Independent Los Angeles Film, Video and Multimedia

November 20-23
REDCAT - Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater
631 W. 2nd Street in Walt Disney Concert Hall Complex

Los Angeles, October 30 -- The Film and Video Series at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) debuts with "Independent Los Angeles." Celebrating the creative energy of local independent filmmakers-a community that is as vibrant as it is aesthetically, ethnically and culturally diverse-the festival offers a wealth of film, video and media practices found in the space between genres, formats and cultural origins. Ranging from the early, independently produced cartoons of Walt Disney to the latest experiments in narrative, documentary and animated film, "Independent Los Angeles" challenges the conventional boundaries dividing art from commerce, the old from the new, the film world from the art world.

General admission tickets are $8.00 ($10.00 for the two opening night events - 50% discount for students and seniors with a valid ID) and can be purchased at the REDCAT box office located on the corner of 2nd and Hope Streets in the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex in downtown Los Angeles, by phone at 213-237-2800 or via www.redcat.org.

The festival presents the Los Angeles premieres of the unflinching experimental documentary A Certain Kind of Death, by Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock, and the counter-cultural exploitation epic Reflections of Evil, by Damon Packard, while revisiting important dramas by Billy Woodberry and Laura Nix. Also scheduled is a challenging program of live-action shorts, experimental film work by fine artists Sharon Lockhart, Simon Leung and Mariana Botey, and live multimedia performances by Charles Phoenix and the duo Animal Charm. Animation programming includes a showcase of cutting-edge shorts and two very special programs to open and close the festival: a survey of the earliest cartoons of Walt Disney and the abstract films of Jules Engel.

The festival is curated by Steve Anker, dean of CalArts School of Film/Video and Bérénice Reynaud, a faculty member of both CalArts School of Film/Video and the Institute's School of Critical Studies, with guest curators Irene Kotlarz and Cathy Rivera. Anker, a former director of the San Francisco Cinematheque and artistic director of the Foundation for Art in Cinema, and Reynaud, have extensive international backgrounds as curators and film/media criticism.

For complete information, click here.