Although high-profile film festivals such as Cannes and Sundance are starting to become derided for freeloading celebrities and swag baskets, the fact remains that festivals are still what they were meant to be: showcases of talent, both established and up-and-coming.
The Los Angeles Film Festival is no exception, featuring summer blockbusters alongside new independent films, Oscar winners alongside young guns, with more than a handful of Bruins involved.
The Los Angeles Film Festival is being held in Westwood Village no through June 29, with screenings of films at various locations around L.A. Films to be showcased include “Choke,” an adaptation of a novel by Chuck Palahniuk of “Fight Club” fame, “The Wackness,” a summer of ’94 period piece with Ben Kingsley, “Half-Life” (not the game, keep playing “Dust,” CS fans), a documentary about Heidi Fleiss, as well as the centerpiece showcase of “Wanted,” “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” and “Anvil! The Story of Anvil.”
Hmm. One of these things is not like the other.
Sacha Gervasi, UCLA alumnus and director of the sore thumb “Anvil!,” a documentary about the trials and tribulations of long-running Canadian metal band Anvil, said, “You know, so there’s three films that they themselves are bannering: “˜Wanted’ with Angelina Jolie, and “˜Hellboy II,’ and in the middle is us. And it’s pretty unusual that “˜Anvil’ would be keeping company with Angelina Jolie and “˜Hellboy II,’ but I think it’s pretty hilarious.” The documentary has already made waves at Sundance.
Gervasi began his road toward the film festival circuit at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television graduate program in screenwriting. Gervasi picked up the application on a whim while visiting the campus when he was on assignment for a British paper.
“I was really shocked that I actually got in, to be honest. And so I think that I’d always had it in my mind that it was an amazing experience, I just thought I wouldn’t be able to get in,” Gervasi said. Gervasi worked his way through the program and eventually found success after writing the Spielberg-helmed “The Terminal.”
Gervasi then turned to the world of independent film in order to satisfy his jones to direct, which led to his involvement in the rapidly snowballing “Anvil!” Gervasi was a roadie for Anvil when he was still a teenager and decided to reconnect with his boyhood heroes 20 years later to document their continuing journey as a band. Despite the very Christopher Guestian nature of the subject, the film is being hailed as an underdog story for the ages.
“When I told (Anvil lead singer) Lips I wanted to make the movie, the first thing he said to me was, “˜I guess we’re kind of like the real Spinal Tap, huh?’ … They have a huge amount of self knowledge. I think in terms of the filmic journey, the film starts in one thing and becomes something very different,” Gervasi said.
“Anvil!” will be screening at the Ford Amphitheater on June 26 at 8 p.m., followed by a live concert by Anvil themselves.
A more low-key entry in the festival that also has ties to UCLA is “Half-Life,” a moody, surreal drama that explores an Asian American latchkey kid’s growing dissociation from reality, set against the backdrop of global warming. The film screens June 29 at 7 p.m. at Westwood’s own Crest Theatre. The film is expected to have the highest turnout at the festival, with 10 people involved making appearances at the festival, including writer-director Jennifer Phang, and UCLA graduate and producer Reuben Lim.
Phang, an alumna of Pomona College, majored in media studies and made short films throughout her college career. She wrote the script for “Half-Life” and managed to procure enough funding to workshop select scenes from the script in order to put together a trailer to show to independent studios.
At this point in production, Lim, who graduated with a degree in psychology from UCLA where he was also a copy editor at the Daily Bruin (“I was there back when we put the paper together with glue, way back when”), became involved. “I had read a lot of scripts, and the script for “˜Half-Life’ had a lot of depth, and it had two Asian American protagonists, and I wanted to support that,” Lim said.
In addition to flipping the script on suburban dramas in terms of racial focus, “Half-Life” uses rotoscoping effects seen in films like “A Scanner Darkly” to give the surreal effect of making live action seem animated. “It’s used in the dream sequences in the film. … As the main character starts to feel more isolated from the world, he starts to retreat into his own,” Phang said.
As the festival continues its 10-day run, Bruins and Angelenos alike can continue to enjoy the fruits of labor of filmmakers of all stripes, from art-house drama, to comic book blockbusters, to rock documentaries, while the film festival also continues to be a proving ground for young alumni waiting to test their mettle.