Hollywood Comedy Short Film Festival
Hollywood Comedy Shorts will highlight short comedy, web series, TV episodic, Comedy Screenplays, and Dark Comedy shorts with the goal of screening the best comedic content from around the world for a Hollywood industry audience! The festival will take place at the world famous TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood, two days of screenings, filmmaker Q and A's, panel, parties, and the awards party!
All Access pass includes all screening events plus:
Panel & Afterparty- Friday, April 14th
REFUND POLICY
NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) Celebrates British Cinema - Film Festival
To kick-start our April 15th film festival, we’re screening the documentary “Desert Around Me: The ADHD Epidemic, a Challenge of Global Proportions.” The film follows a team as they prepare for an ultra marathon in the Sahara Desert, which serves to raise awareness to the ADHD community.
In the second film program of the night, NFMLA presents “InFocus: British Cinema,” which shines a spotlight on upcoming directors and producers from the United Kingdom. “Bobby Sands: 66 Days” is a documentary, which follows the story of activist Bobby Sands’ hunger strike and the resulting impact on British-Irish relations. Following that, is a short film block, which centers on portrayals of family and friendship, posing questions about identity and internal conflict. These emerging directors illuminate the diverse range of the human experience, from a veteran’s struggle with PTSD to the strained reconciliation between a young woman and her mother.
In the final program of the night, we take you on a journey throughout the United States. These shorts feature of a variety of film genres from dark comedies to suspenseful thrillers to somber Westerns. We follow a border agent’s attempt to try and resolve a messy situation, a man’s journey to find his life’s treasure, and a story about two young girls struggling to survive in the world.
Throughout the night, you will have the opportunity to mingle with the filmmakers, industry supporters and film lovers over cocktails and beats at the filmmakers’ lounge adjacent to the private entry of the South Park Center’s 500 seat theater in Downtown Los Angeles.
Tickets are only $5 for single film programs and $15 for all films with open bar.
CATALYST FIRST DRAFT - SAVING SHENANDOAH, WRITTEN BY ALESSANDRA BAUTZE
SIFF Catalyst First Draft live script table read series, now in its fourth year, features unproduced scripts that were finalists in the 2016 Catalyst Screenplay Competition. The screenplays will be performed live with professional actors in front of an audience, and followed by feedback from industry insiders and audience members, alike.
Upcoming Script: Saving Shenandoah, written by Alessandra Bautze
Seventeen-year-old Laurie has grown up in New Hampshire’s foster care system. She has never known a loving home, until she comes into the care of foster parent Beatrice and her young daughter Shenandoah. When Beatrice dies suddenly and it becomes clear that Shenandoah will go into the foster care system herself, Laurie takes drastic measures and goes on the run with Shenandoah to prevent the young girl from meeting the same fate as Laurie, who has become hardened from years in a broken system. But as Laurie struggles to get Shenandoah to safety—coming face to face with the demons of her past along the way—she begins to realize that saving the young girl, whom she has come to see as a sister, may come at a higher cost than she ever expected.
Alessandra Bautze holds an M.F.A in Screenwriting from The University of Texas at Austin, as well as a B.A. in The Writing Seminars and Film & Media Studies from The Johns Hopkins University. While in graduate school, Alessandra taught screenwriting to undergraduates and served as a fiction reader for Bat City Review. Alessandra’s writing often tackles diverse issues of social import and has garnered numerous awards. Her screenplay EIGHT DAYS IN ’88, a drama about identity, empowerment, and belonging set against the backdrop of the Deaf President Now movement at Gallaudet University, the world's only liberal arts university for the deaf and hard of hearing, placed in the top 15% of all entries in the 2016 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. Her television pilots have explored topics ranging from the juvenile justice system to the FBI’s complicity in Civil Rights Era hate crimes. She is thrilled that her screenplay SAVING SHENANDOAH, which also placed in the Top 3 in the New Hampshire Film Festival screenplay competition, was selected for the SIFF Catalyst First Draft series. When she’s not writing fiction or screenplays, Alessandra can be found watching movies at the local arthouse cinema, browsing the shelves of the local independent bookstore, speaking French, or conversing in American Sign Language. She’s an avid fan of strong female protagonists. http://alessandrabautze.com
ABOUT SIFF FIRST DRAFT
First Draft is part of SIFF Education's Catalyst program. Catalyst is designed to support filmmakers, both artistically and professionally, as they progress from one stage of their careers to the next. Catalyst First Draft offers audience members a glimpse into a developmental stage of the creative process, in which a screenplay is prepped for eventual production via a live table read performed by professional Seattle actors. Audience members, guided by industry professionals, then have the opportunity to offer immediate and constructive feedback. Join us each month for Catalyst First Draft and take part in making an award-winning script even better!
