AFI Film Festival Stands Up to Be Counted

How would The Times react to a statement regretting that there is not a world-class newspaper in Los Angeles!

That’s how we at the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival feel about the statement in David J. Fox’s article about the opening of the Center for Motion Picture Study regretting that there is not a world-class film festival in Los Angeles.

The attitude assumed by this article about the quality of Los Angeles film culture is belied by the facts. Regarding our festival, your own film critics trumpeted its importance last April with the headline: “L.A. Film Festival Comes of Age.”

The AFI Los Angeles Film Festival is now the largest in the U.S.A., recognized by the International Federation of Film Producers as one of the major festivals of the world, and has premiered more than 600 films in Los Angeles in its four years of existence. It is a festival that matters.

But it is hardly alone in promoting film art and history in this city. We like to point proudly to the other major cultural film organizations in Los Angeles which the quoted anonymous film “historian” chose to similarly dismiss. This is a city rich in film exhibition of all kinds and the study of all aspects of cinema as an art.

The UCLA Film and Television Archive is not only one of the largest and most important film archives in the world and a leader in the fight for film preservation, but its film theater is one of the major cinematheque-type operations of the world, comparable to those in Paris, New York, Washington and London.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in addition to offering a rich archive at its new study center, regularly presents exhibitions, seminars and special programs.

The American Film Institute, centered in Los Angeles, is the only national cultural film organization in the United States, comparable to the British Film Institute in England, and the AFI carries on a multitude of educational and cultural film activities, including a fine research library, awards to established and avant-garde filmmakers, lecture series, exhibition of new works and publishing.

The National Center for Film and Video Preservation, located at the AFI, collates historical film data, coordinates preservation work and publishes definitive catalogues on American films.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has outstanding film programs every week of the year, specializing in revivals of Hollywood masterpieces, and also presents a major TV festival in collaboration with the New York Museum of Broadcasting.

Los Angeles has the only commercial cinema in the world (just reopened) presenting only silent movies.

Los Angeles has more film, TV and video festivals than any other city in the world. They include the AFI’s European, U.S. independents and national video festivals, UCLA’s preservation, Asian and documentary festivals, Women in Film’s Festival and other specialized festivals of all kinds, including festivals devoted to gay and lesbian films, Japanese films, black films, Jewish films, Freewaves video, etc.

Los Angeles is not a city outside film and video culture; it is one of the leaders in the field.

And it has a damned fine world-class film festival.