"Personal Storytelling, Experimentation, and a DIY Spirit": A Look Inside LAFM 2026
Artistic directors and co-founders Sarah Winshall and Micah Gottlieb help preview the third edition of their indie film fest.
Returning for its third annual edition, the Los Angeles Festival of Movies boasts a lineup of critical darlings from other festivals, newly-restored global cinema, and even the odd world premiere. Co-founded by Sarah Winshall, producer behind indie gems like I Saw the TV Glow and Good One, and Micah Gottlieb, artistic director of the programming non-profit Mezzanine, LAFM was created in part to respond to a dearth of indie film exhibition in the metropolis. From April 9 through 12, L.A.’s east side will serve as a watering hole for filmgoers in a city that, while integral to the filmmaking ecosystem at large, has been in dire need of a hub for genuine cinematic discovery—particularly since the shuttering of the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2018 and the demise of both Outfest and Locarno in Los Angeles after their respective 2023 editions.
“For this year’s festival, we tried to put together a cross-section of major discoveries from international and stateside filmmakers, and found that our lineup is overwhelmingly made up of debut features,” Winshall and Gottlieb told Filmmaker in an exclusive joint statement. “The program covers a broad swath of genres, but what all of these films have in common is a commitment to personal storytelling, experimentation, and a DIY spirit. These are the independent films getting made today, and how lucky for us! We’re honored to be able to introduce these new voices to our audience.”
The opening night selection is Maddie’s Secret, the feature debut from actor and comedian John Early which generated generous fanfare after bowing at TIFF in the fall. Early plays the titular character, a food influencer whose social media presence conceals a secret struggle with bulimia. Despite its subject matter, Early’s effort has resonated as a sharp commentary on disordered eating, evading glib satire and male misconceptions surrounding women’s beauty standards. Magnolia will release the film in the coming months, and its concurrent programming in NYC’s renowned New Directors/New Films showcase bodes quite well for the film’s forthcoming theatrical release.
New York film folk speculated that Canadian metafictionist Sophy Romvari’s Blue Heron would fit in quite nicely amid this year’s ND/NF lineup, but the filmmaker’s acclaimed feature debut—which elegantly narrativizes her brother’s adolescent mental health struggles—makes its U.S. premiere as the closing night selection at LAFM. Blue Heron received the Swatch First Feature Award following its Locarno world premiere last summer before screening at TIFF alongside Maddie’s Secret. Releasing April 17 via Janus Films, Romvari spoke to fellow Maple Leaf filmmaker Chandler Levack for our Spring 2026 issue. Their interview will go live next week.
Sandwiched between these titles are nine other features, which will screen between four venues: Vidiots, 2220 Arts + Archives, Now Instant Image Hall, and the Philosophical Research Society. The sole world premiere of the festival is co-directors Avalon Fast and Jillian Frank’s Drinking and Driving, which the film’s publicist aptly pitched as “Daisies by way of Harmony Korine.” Fast and Jillian co-star as two directionless young women who booze and bumble their way through a languid small town summer. As with Fast’s previous output—including her soon to be released sophomore feature CAMP and 2022 debut Honeycomb, which both star Frank—there’s a radical realism baked into the film, almost manifesting as a pastiche of the 26-year-old Fast’s not-so-distant youthful abandon.
Another example of LAFM and ND/NF’s cross-pollination is Chronovisor, the inaugural feature from duo Jack Auen and Kevin Walker that debuted at IFFR earlier this year. Anne Laure Sellier plays a French academic who becomes obsessively enthralled by a strange conspiracy about a mythic machine that can capture images from the past—namely the visage of Christ’s face as he’s crucified. The texture of 16mm film meshes perfectly with the archival artifacts unearthed by the protagonist, and innovative subtitle effects translate foreign text in real-time. All in all, Chronovisor is a strikingly original feat, blending European art house aesthetics with the unique gumption of American independent filmmaking.
In regards to restorations, the 2K restoration Mary Stephen’s Shades of Silk (1978) arrives on the West Coast after previously screening as part of NYFF’s 2025 revivals section. Before being known as the longtime editor and collaborator of Éric Rohmer, Stephen helmed her first feature film, a nod to the work of Marguerite Duras that shoots Paris for Shanghai and follows two young Chinese women as they confront their true feelings for each other. And hot off of MoMA’s To Save and Project series is the 4K restoration of Macho Dancer, Filipino director Lino Brocka’s 1988 exploration of a young gigolo working Manila’s queer scene.
It would be remiss not to mention the quantity of LAFM-selected filmmakers who have previously appeared on our annual 25 New Faces of Film list. There’s Frederic Da’s iPhone-shot high school found footage film Isaiah’s Phone; shorts by Suneil Sangziri and Kevin Jerome Everson (the latter co-directing with frequent collaborator Claudrena N. Harold) curated in the “Part-Time” program; Josephine Decker’s new short appearing in the LA-specific “Presidium Overactive” block; and, fittingly, Don Hertzfeldt’s latest creation presented in the “Animation Today” short series.
In essence, LAFM has positioned itself as an oasis of sorts for independent film in a locale that is all but synonymous with big-budget productions and bloated industry aspirations. This year will prove particularly critical to the festival, as it’s the first since it parted ways with sponsor MUBI over the distributor and streamer receiving a $100 million investment from Sequoia, a venture capital firm with ties to Israeli weapons manufacturing. Indeed, Kamal Aljafari’s With Hasan in Gaza, a festival circuit mainstay that features archival mini-DV footage of the besieged city, feels perfectly programmed here.
Co-presented by Mezzanine and Kino Film Collection (Kino Lorber’s streaming arm), this year might feel somewhat scaled down without MUBI’s support on financial and marketing fronts. But a heightened sense of intimacy could serve the fledgling festival just as well, exemplifying that independent film—making it, programming it, exhibiting it—doesn’t need to be an exercise in compromise.