LRIFF Rocks Manifesto
LARIFF PLEDGES TO:
- Reward films that treat varied subject matter with originality
- Promote movies that champion racial and sexual equality
- Support artists whose work treats narrative and form experimentally
- Provide a platform, online and through events and screenings, for the independent filmmaking to convene and collaborate
- Give recognition to emerging talent (directors, cinematographers, writers, editors, performers, musicians etc.) from all cultures and backgrounds
… the people who think they enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean 3 are simply suffering from the cinematic equivalent of long-term deprivation from the basics of a civilized society. They are the multiplex dwellers who have become used to living in the cultural freezing cold … the audiences of the apocalypse.” |
Let’s put the bad in the movie industry to one side and start with the good. The posters on this page testify to the extraordinary wealth of movies made in Los Angeles. One hundred and twenty years ago, a freshly irrigated Los Angeles was attracting talented and ambitious filmmakers – the likes of Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks. The silent film era oversaw a period of rapid technical innovation and is a treasure trove of visual experimentation and pioneering cinematography. Hollywood’s Golden Age saw productions that continue to fascinate scholars – movies as diverse as Modern Times, The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, All About Eve, Rebel Without a Cause, Rear Window, and so forth. Émigré auteurs flocked to Hollywood in the interwar period, the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir, Nicholas Ray, Billy Wilder and Otto Preminger – many of whom would fuel Hollywood’s gloriously deviant film noir cycle that explored the darker side of American life. The 1960s and 70s saw the emergence of a revitalized Hollywood. Borrowing in tone and form from the French New Wave, Hollywood movies such as Chinatown, Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, A Clockwork Orange, Taxi Driver, Network and Apocalypse Now explored youthful and political subject matter with strong ties to counterculture.
And then the studios created the blockbuster. Since adopting a formulaic – and increasingly data analytical approach – to determining which productions get financed, Hollywood has increasingly refrained from pushing the artistic envelope. At the start of the 2020s, the blockbuster sequels reign supreme, with the likes of Spider-Man, Avengers and Transformers taking billions at the box office. Mark Kermode and like-minded critics have accused Hollywood’s most commercially successful directors of “wrecking cinema.”
At LA Rocks, we say enough is enough! LA is home to the biggest metropolitan pool of directors, writers, actors, musicians, creatives in the world. The indie filmmaking scene is thriving – behind the scenes, at least. Moreover, Los Angeles has a massively diverse population – a thriving Latino, Asian and Armenian communities, and almost every nationality on earth is represented in this city. Each community has unique narratives to relate. This is the impetus for Los Angeles Rocks.
And then the studios created the blockbuster. Since adopting a formulaic – and increasingly data analytical approach – to determining which productions get financed, Hollywood has increasingly refrained from pushing the artistic envelope. At the start of the 2020s, the blockbuster sequels reign supreme, with the likes of Spider-Man, Avengers and Transformers taking billions at the box office. Mark Kermode and like-minded critics have accused Hollywood’s most commercially successful directors of “wrecking cinema.”
At LA Rocks, we say enough is enough! LA is home to the biggest metropolitan pool of directors, writers, actors, musicians, creatives in the world. The indie filmmaking scene is thriving – behind the scenes, at least. Moreover, Los Angeles has a massively diverse population – a thriving Latino, Asian and Armenian communities, and almost every nationality on earth is represented in this city. Each community has unique narratives to relate. This is the impetus for Los Angeles Rocks.