{"id":634703,"date":"2026-03-05T20:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T20:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/634703\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T20:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T20:21:14","slug":"los-angeles-festival-of-movies-reveals-2026-lineup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/634703\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Festival of Movies Reveals 2026 Lineup"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLos Angeles Festival of Movies<\/a> is reeling in a full program for its 2026 edition.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe newish festival, co-founded by Micah Gottlieb and Sarah Winshall in 2024, is set to take place April 9-12. It will open with John Early<\/a>\u2019s directorial debut, Maddie\u2019s Secret, and close with Sophy Romvari\u2019s Blue Heron<\/a>. Co-presented by Kino Film Collection and Mezzanine, LAFM will roll out a program of more than 25 films, including two world premieres, three U.S. premieres and six West Coast premieres along with featured artist talks that are still being finalized.<\/p>\n

\n\tMagnolia Pictures\u2019 Maddie\u2019s Secret, which will screen at Vidiots\u2019 Eagle Theatre on April 9, stars Early opposite Kate Berlant, Vanessa Bayer and Conner O\u2019Malley. Early, who wrote and directed, also stars as the title character, Maddie Ralph, a food influencer who is secretly struggling with the return of an adolescent eating disorder. The LAFM showing follows a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\n\tJanus Films\u2019 Blue Heron will close the festival at Vidiots\u2019 Eagle Theatre on April 12. Romvari\u2019s film, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, where she received the Swatch first feature award and the junior jury award, follows a Hungarian family as they immigrate to Vancouver Island in the late 1990s. The journey is complicated by the erratic behavior of their teenage son.<\/p>\n

\n\tLAFM\u2019s 2026 lineup also includes such official selections as Christine Haroutounian\u2019s After Dreaming co-presented by the Armenian Film Society, Jack Auen and Kevin Walker\u2019s Chronovisor, Avalon Fast and Jillian Frank\u2019s horror film Drinking and Driving, Tucker Bennett\u2019s In the Glow of Darkness, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Da\u2019s Isaiah\u2019s Phone, Anouk Moyaux\u2019s Selegna Sol, and Kamal Aljafari\u2019s With Hasan in Gaza. Restoration screenings include Aarin Burch\u2019s Dreams of Passion, Lino Brocka\u2019s influential gay drama Macho Dancer and Mary Stephen\u2019s Shades of Silk. More on the lineup, including short film selections and the full schedule thus far, can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re so happy to be back with a fresh and exciting lineup that exemplifies the height of independent filmmaking,\u201d Winshall said. \u201cWe\u2019re particularly thrilled this year to be including John Early\u2019s singular and oddly moving satire, Maddie\u2019s Secret, and to close with Sophy Romvari\u2019s unexpected, elliptical personal portrait, Blue Heron, both highly original films that are best seen on a big screen with a large audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAdded Gottlieb: \u201cServing a thriving community of young, diverse cinephiles is what the festival is all about. We\u2019re also continuing to introduce audiences to restored arthouse gems, including Lino Brocka\u2019s long-out-of-print queer cult classic Macho Dancer, while also screening more new features and shorts by local L.A. filmmakers, which provide an askance and beautifully intimate portrait of life in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLAFM has linked up with Vidiots in Eagle Rock, interdisciplinary space 2220 Arts + Archives in Historic Filipinotown and independent theater Now Instant Image Hall in Chinatown as screening venues. LAFM conversations will take place at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz. LAFM passes are on sale now<\/a> with individual tickets set to go on sale the week of March 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Festival of Movies is reeling in a full program for its 2026 edition. The newish festival,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":634704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[270503,1582,276,270504,2961,224,270505,5337],"class_list":["post-634703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-blue-heron","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-john-early","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-festival-of-movies","tag-losangeles"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116178432042907514","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}