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This year’s Festival takes place from June 10-18 in downtown LA at the Regal Cinemas at L.A. LIVE. Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we unveil the big news about the great features, documentaries, shorts, videos, live performances and panels—as well as everything you ever wanted to know about buying tickets and passes but were afraid to ask. Today we get the proverbial ball rolling with one of our biggest announcements of all: Our opening night film will be the Los Angeles premiere of Grandma!...

Steinem had, in fact, been scheduled to join Taymor and Renata on the Zoom panel to discuss the film together, screened on September 28 as part of our ongoing Film Independent Goes to Washington programming series. Unfortunately, Steinem was waylaid at the last moment by an urgent medical procedure, for which she is thankfully currently on the mend. But despite “Ms.” Steinem’s absence (see what we did there?) old pals Taymor and Renata had a lot to talk about—the pair going all the way back to 2000, when Renata played the part of Shanzi in the original Los Angeles production of Taymor’s The Lion King....

A longtime favorite of rep programmers and civics classrooms alike, Frank Capra’s classic 1939 political fable Mr. Smith Goes to Washington tells the story of a naïve young scout leader (James Stewart) who improbably finds himself elevated to the position of U.S. Senator. Once inside the beltway, the titular Mr. Smith is soon confronted with harsh realities of modern politics, his idealistic view of American government sorely challenged. And, in the eight decades since the film’s release, the suffix …goes to Washington has often been invoked to characterize the struggles of ambitious political outsiders to remake the system....

As the frequent subject of new works of fiction and nonfiction cinema, Film Independent has frequently had the occasion to discuss the experiences of Black Americans across a wide range of panels, filmmaker roundtables and post-screening Q&A’s. Here are some of our favorites: MISS JUNETEENTH (2020) Written & directed by: Channing Godfrey Peoples Producers: Toby Halbrooks, Tim Headington, Jeanie Igoe, James M. Johnston, Theresa Steele Page, Neil Creque Williams Starring: Nicole Beharie, Kendrick Sampson, Alexis Chikaeze About: A former beauty queen and single mom prepares her rebellious teenage daughter for the “Miss Juneteenth” pageant....