Los Angeles Film Festival Announces Free Community Screenings

The Los Angeles Film Festival takes place this year from June 11 to June 19 at the Regal Cinemas at L.A. Live. This year’s event will include the premiere of “Jersey Boys,” Clint Eastwood’s big-screen adaptation of the popular musical, on closing night. The three gala screenings are: “Love Is Strange,” starring John Lithgow and Alfred Molina; “Dear White People,” a comedy about racial politics that centers on four black students at an Ivy League college; and “The Two Faces of January,” a thriller set in Greece and Turkey in 1962. Bong Joon-ho’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi film “Snowpiercer” will be the opening film.

The fest will screen more than 200 feature films, shorts and music videos in the nine days the festival runs. This year in celebration of the festival’s 20th anniversary, there are several free screenings including Amy Heckerling’s “Clueless,” Luis Valdez’s “La Bamba,” Dave LaMattina and Chad Walker’s I Am Big Bird, Buster Keaton’s “Cops” and “Sherlock Jr.” and Thomas Miller‘s “Limited Partnership.” Union Station will host the Dance-A-Long screening of “La Bamba” and Luis Valdez, actors Lou Diamond Phillips and Elizabeth Peña will be in attendance for a special Q+A before the film. The documentary “I Am Big Bird” directed by Dave LaMattina and Chad Walker will be screened at California Plaza. “I Am Big Bird” profiles Caroll Spinney, the 80-year-old puppeteer who has been behind Sesame Street’s Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since the show’s first season.

Passes and ticket packages are now on sale and individual tickets to screenings and events go on sale to the general public on Tuesday, May 20, with a Film Independent Member pre-sale beginning May 15. Contact the Festival Ticket Office for passes, tickets and event information by calling 866.FILM.FEST (866.345.6337) or visit LAFilmFest.com.