ABOUT

Los Angeles Festival of Movies (LAFM) presented by Kino Film Collection and Mezzanine is a curated annual film festival in Los Angeles, showcasing new independent and restoration premieres to a local audience.

Now in its third year, the festival redefines Los Angeles as a destination for independent film. LAFM has curated a selection of high profile narrative and documentary film premieres; talks with local artists, luminaries, and thought leaders; and parties each night, across four east side LA venues.

PRESS

“The only weekend of the year where being an indie filmmaker in LA feels like it truly matters as much as it should.” -Matthew Chan, Artillery Magazine

“LAFM [brings] a much-needed jolt of energy to the city, conjuring just the right mix of in-the-know hipness and welcoming inclusivity…giving off an energy of invention and revelation.” -Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times

“LAFM was designed as an audience festival–to bring those who make films and those who simply enjoy them together; to show these attendees small, high-quality, and (mostly) independently produced and undistributed films; and to release these audiences into gathering spaces for conversation and connection.” -Ryan Coleman, Los Angeles Review of Books

“I’ve never had more fun at a screening in Los Angeles.” -Paula Mejia, Dirt

“[Micah] Gottlieb and [Sarah] Winshall succeed in parlaying hard won trust into captive crowds, eager to make both cinematic discoveries and new film friends” -Caleb Hammond, Actual Violence

MEZZANINE BOARD

Adam Piron (Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma and Mohawk) is a Southern California-based filmmaker, writer, and curator. He is the Director of Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program where he oversees the organization’s support for Indigenous filmmakers globally and a co-founder of COUSIN: a film collective dedicated to supporting Indigenous artists experimenting with and pushing the boundaries of the moving image. As a film programmer, he has served as a member of the Sundance Film Festival’s Short Film Programming Team since 2013 and was previously the Film Curator for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). His films have screened in the New York Film Festival, MoMA Doc Fortnight, International Film Festival Rotterdam, MOCA Los Angeles, True/False Film Festival, ESPN’s 30 for 30, and various other festivals and programs. His writing has appeared in The Criterion Collection’s Current, Cinema Scope Magazine, the Metrograph Journal, and CNN.

Dylan Redford is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles, CA. His projects have been screened at various festivals and institutions, including MoMA, Walker Art Center, Sundance Film Festival, Rotterdam, and TIFF.

Abby Sun (she/her) is the International Documentary Association’s director of artist programs and editor of Documentary, a quarterly print and digital magazine. Before joining IDA, Abby was curator of the DocYard and editor of Immerse, MIT Open Documentary Lab’s digital publication. She also has bylines in Film Comment, Filmmaker, Film Quarterly, Notebook, and Sight & Sound; served on festival juries for Hot Docs, Dokufest, Palm Springs, New Orleans, and CAAMfest, as well as nominating committees for the Gotham Awards and Cinema Eye; and received a fall 2022 Warhol Foundation Curatorial Research Fellowship. With Jordan Lord, she received a 2022 American Stories Documentary Fellowship for the upcoming The Voice of Democracy. Her hometown is Columbia, Missouri, US.

Maya S. Cade is the creator and curator of Black Film Archive – a first-of-its-kind digital archive likened to be the definitive history of Black cinema by Slate.com – and the inaugural Connecting Communities Digital Initiative scholar-in-residence at the Library of Congress.

Cade is the only person in history to win multiple esteemed special critic awards in the same season, receiving special distinctions by the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Society of Film Critics, and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists. Since Black Film Archive’s August 2021 launch, Cade’s achievement has been featured in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, among countless other publications across the world.

In July 2023, Cade was listed on Fast Company’s annual Most Creative Person list. In March 2023, Cade was listed on Essence Magazine’s inaugural Young, Gifted, and Black list highlighting 10 Black art leaders under 30. The award-winning writer and curator is based in Los Angeles.

Rebekah Weikel is an editor and producer with a long career in the arts and culture space. She has delivered large-scale book-launch events for artists such as David Lynch, Patti Smith, Wim Wenders, and actor Michael Caine, and from 2007 to 2010 managed the proto‑electronic band Silver Apples, organizing international tours across North America, Europe, and Japan while securing prominent media placements.

She founded Penny‑Ante, an independent press that published critically praised genre-hybrid work, including a selection named to The Guardian's “Best of Fiction” list. She later consulted with book publishers on title acquisition, marketing strategy, and grant funding, while also developing and producing projects and events across a wide range of arts disciplines and industries.

In addition to her current work with Mezzanine, Rebekah serves on the Board of Directors of Ready, Set, Read, a nonprofit focused on early childhood literacy and school readiness, particularly for families in Los Angeles’s most underserved communities. She is also a published writer, with essays and reviews appearing in Artforum, Art in America, and elsewhere, and the founding editor of Interlude Docs, an online archival project featuring contributions from writers, artists, and filmmakers. She lives in Los Angeles.

LAFM TEAM

PART-TIME SHORTS curated by Now Instant Image Hall

ANIMATION TODAY curated by Sean Buckalew

PRESIDIUM OVERACTIVE curated by Creston Brown

PRESHOW FESTIVAL TRAILER directed by Chloe Pang

OFFICIAL FESTIVAL POSTER art by Arius Ziaee

ADVISORY BOARD

Alex Mechanik
Ash Cook
Athina Rachel Tsangari
Courtney Muller
Discordia
Eric Allen Hatch
Hedi El Kholti
James Belfer
Jon Dieringer
Kiva Reardon
Kyra Rogers
Michelle Carey
Miriam Bale
Riel Roch Decter
Samy Burch
Sandi Tan
Sean Baker
Sean Buckelew

FESTIVAL PARTNERS

CineCamp will offer childcare for festival attendees.

Video Store.Age, a new grassroots distribution venture has offered unconventional distribution opportunities for all official festival selections.

CONTACT

GENERAL
info@lafestivalofmovies.org

PRESS
LAFM@divergentpr.com

April 9-12, 2026

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