Los Angeles Festival of Movies (LAFM) Announces Additional Programming in the 2025
The upcoming edition of the festival will take place April 3–6, 2025 at eastside venues across Los Angeles and present a program of over 20 films including one world premiere, as well as a curated short film program, and a newly introduced Animation Today program.
The Los Angeles Festival of Movies (LAFM), co-presented by MUBI and Mezzanine, announced the addition of two 4K restoration presentations, the Closing Night film on April 6, 2025, as well as the West Coast Premiere of A24’s Friendship, a comedy starring Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd, Kate Mara, and Jack Dylan Grazer. LAFM will present the West Coast premiere of the 4K restorations of Robina Rose’s portrait of the UK underground, Nightshift, and Jessie Maple’s Will, the first independent feature-length film directed by an African-American woman. LAFM will close with Neo Sora’s Happyend, which follows two teenage best friends in a heavily surveilled Japan of the near-future.
“We couldn’t be more proud to close the festival with Neo Sora’s incredible debut feature Happyend, a film that captures the joy and uncertainty of adolescence today in the face of what feel like insurmountable challenges of rising authoritarianism and climate change,” said Micah Gottlieb, co-founder of LAFM. “We’re also so excited to include two restorations of independent films by women on the cutting edge of independent filmmaking in the early 1980s, both here in the U.S. and Britain, with the revelatory naturalism of Jessie Maple’s Will and the hypnotic reverie of Robina Rose’s Nightshift. Finally, we’re overjoyed to spotlight one of the funniest new movies we’ve watched in years, Andrew DeYoung’s Friendship, a comedy that deserves to be seen on the big screen with an audience.”
New to the festival this year is a Pass-Holder Lounge at 2220 Arts + Archives, where coffee and pastries will be available Saturday and Sunday from local restaurant and cafe, Sqirl, courtesy of Dolly Card. Sqirl will also provide snacks and lunch in the lobby at 2220 Arts + Archives during the festival. Details and hours can be found on lafestivalofmovies.org
As previously announced, the upcoming edition of the festival will take place April 3–6, 2025 at eastside venues across Los Angeles and present a program of over 20 films including one world premiere, as well as a curated short film program, and a newly introduced Animation Today program. Passes are currently on sale and pre-sale pass-holder tickets go on sale March 10. Single ticket sales are on sale March 17.
“Last year all of our screenings were sold out, so this year to meet demand we are screening most of our programs more than once, and expanding our footprint at Now Instant Image Hall and Vidiots,” said Sarah Winshall, co-founder of LAFM. “We are also really excited to create a festival hub with our brand new Pass-Holder Lounge at 2220 Arts + Archives and hope that it will be a place where filmmakers and festival-goers can connect and recharge between films.”
The 2025 edition will open with Magic Farm, the ensemble comedy written and directed by Ulman, featuring Chloë Sevigny, Simon Rex, and Alex Wolff. The festival will feature the world premiere of Room Temperature from novelist, poet, and provocateur Dennis Cooper in collaboration with Zac Farley; the U.S. premiere of Alexandra Simpson’s No Sleep Till; director Grace Glowicki’s midnight stunner Dead Lover; and a collection of panels and talks, including a conversation about transgression in cinema and literature between Dennis Cooper and writer Tony Tulathimutte, the acclaimed millennial satirist whose 2024 novel Rejection was longlisted for the National Book Award.
The 2025 festival follows last year’s successful inaugural edition, a four-day high-profile celebratory event that saw the West Coast premieres of A24’s I Saw the TV Glow, as well a new 4K restoration of Chantal Akerman’s Toute Une Nuit and several sold-out panels featuring legendary artist/musician Kim Gordon, author Rachel Kushner, and filmmakers Raven Jackson and Kahlil Joseph. Created to bring a community together to watch, discuss and celebrate great movies, showcasing independent voices and fresh perspectives.
The festival will again partner 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. The festival’s conversation series will take place at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz, new for the festival this year.
The latest additions to the 2025 LAFM:
SPECIAL SCREENING
Friendship | Andrew DeYoung, USA, 2025, 101m
West Coast Premiere with Director Andrew DeYoung In-Person
Suburban dad Craig falls hard for his charismatic new neighbor, but Craig’s attempts to
make an adult male friend threaten to ruin both of their lives. Narrative.
RESTORATIONS
Nightshift | Robina Rose, U.K., 1981, 68m
West Coast Premiere of 4K Restoration with an Introduction from Sarah Cooper
Over the course of a single nightshift, a West London hotel clerk plays silent witness to a hypnotic constellation of guests. Narrative.
Will | Jessie Maple, USA, 1981, 80m
West Coast Premiere Courtesy of Janus Films
Presented in Partnership with Black Revivalist
In 1981, Jessie Maple became the first African American woman to direct an independent film with this raw, unflinching portrait of heroin addiction and recovery. Narrative.
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
Happyend | Neo Sora, Japan, USA, 2024, 113m
West Coast Premiere with director Neo Sora in person
With graduation looming in near future Tokyo, two high school friends must reevaluate their friendship after pulling a consequential classroom prank. Coupled with the daily threat of a catastrophic earthquake, the friends are forced to reckon with their opposing visions of the future. Narrative.
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