The City of Angels Film Festival Executive Committee welcomes you to the 2005 Festival. We have designed and organized a movie-going experience we believe will provide both entertainment and education. Our festival has always attempted to screen exceptional films that exhibit the texture of city living with a spotlight on the spiritual / religious dimensions of daily life.

The comedic impulse in human affairs has many manifestations and serves a dizzying array of purposes. Cinema has been a prolific supplier of comedy: Sometimes exhibiting celebrations and achievements; other times probing calamities and tragedies. The multifaceted forms of humor (vulgar, cynical, ironical, skeptical, puritanical, and therapeutic) energize movie audiences to examine their private lives as well as our society and culture.

CAFF has selected for its 2005 annual retrospective extravaganza the theme: “Divine Comedy: Spirited Laughter.” Films that generate hilarious moments can arouse the human spirit. Laughing our way through two hours of comedic encounters cleanses the emotions and renews our thinking capacities. Divining comedy can elevate and enlarge our imaginations giving us new leases on hope and love. Funny flicks open up space for spirited laughter to do its radical makeovers on unsuspecting human species.

Now in its 12th year, the City of Angels Film Festival (CAFF) was born amidst the “Rebuild L.A.” impulse following the intense social upheaval of 1992. The festival was created, in part, as a gift from spiritually sensitive filmmakers and cinematically informed theologians to help revitalize this great city. Responding also to Cardinal Roger Mahony’s stirring pastoral letter to filmmakers and moviegoers to listen to and learn from each other, the coalition behind the CAFF emerged with a specific mission: to identify and showcase movies that probe the ambiguities of human life, which includes the longing for transcendence.

Over the years, the festival has specialized in retrospectives of feature films with panel discussions on their cultural capital and spiritual significance. The eventual inclusion of a Documentary and Short Films Program at the festival added a component of freshness to the annual event that demonstrates CAFF’s entrepreneurial spirit as well as its commitment to honor masterpieces of the past. Our co-sponsor, Reel Spirituality, provides an excellent educational seminar. Family Theatre Productions generously contributes the “Angelus Awards” a juried student film festival. The Spiritus Award is given every year to the best writing on film.

Past themes of the festival make clear why it has become “One of the Top Ten Coolest Things to Do in L.A.” (Los Angeles Magazine):

1994 – Los Angeles in the Movies: Dreams / Conflicts / Lifestyles
1995 – The Quest for Reconciliation in Cinema
1996 – The Search for Meaning in Film
1997 – Seeking To Connect: Outsiders and Communities on Screen
1998 – Chasing the Sacred: The Cinema of Spirituality
1999 – Embracing Apocalypse: Vision of Faith and Fear
2000 – Road Trip: Moving with the Spirit
2001 – Touches of Evil
2002 – American Dreams: Life, Liberty, Pursuit of….
2003 – Revelations/Revolutions: A Century of Cinema
2004 – Reel Myths

The City of Angels Film Festival explores the intersection of Film/City/Religion. We attempt in each festival to produce a dynamic film program in the most culturally rich and diverse city in the 21st Century where we both practice and question religious confessions and entertainment art.

Scott Young, Co-Founder/Exec. Director