Los Angeles Film Festival Opens June 22

The LAFF begins this week in the Westwood Village district of Los Angeles, after relocating from its former location on Sunset Blvd. The move will hopefully provide better access and reduce travel time between most theater venues, while offering audiences some of the best screens in the city, favored by studios for premieres and special events.

Presented by Film Independent, the festival's gala screenings showcase several upcoming summer studio releases, kicking off with David Frankel's "The Devil Wears Prada" (Twentieth Century Fox), starring Meryl Streep as a ruthless fashion magazine editor. Closing out the fest, a wildly dysfunctional family makes a cross-country trek to a children's beauty contest in the comedy "Little Miss Sunshine" (Fox Searchlight Pictures). The Centerpiece Premiere features "Quincenera" (Sony Pictures Classics), the 2006 Sundance Film Festival double-award winning drama about a teenage girl's troubled social debut in L.A.'s Echo Park neighborhood. Both of the latter are independent productions picked up for distribution by studio specialty divisions earlier this year at Sundance.

Among the world and North American premieres scattered throughout the 8 narrative competition slots are Ian McCrudden's regional drama "Islander," the romantic comedy "Ira & Abby" from Robert Cary, Chris Chan Lee's long-awaited Koreatown crime drama "Undoing" and the lighthearted comedy "The Lather Effect," by Sarah Kelly.

World premiere Documentary competitors include the Oklahoma-set environmental diary "The Creek Runs Red," by Bradley Beesley, Alan Berg's New Orleans dancehall celebration "A Place to Dance," and the pedophile-priest profile "Deliver Us From Evil," by Amy Berg. Both competitions award the winning director a $50,000 cash prize.

The fest's International Showcase presents 21 titles from Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, Africa and the Mideast, while "Dark Wave" serves up a sidebar of genre offerings.

Special screenings, short films and a free movie series, along with a variety of Festival Talks, filmmaker discussions and symposia -- including FIND's annual Financing Conference -- round out the fest.

CinemaPlanet's "don't-miss picks" include:

A 20th anniversary screening of "Blue Velvet" with director David Lynch in person

Vice-President Al Gore's presentation of the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" -- a global warming wake-up call

Sundance Film Festival 2006 standouts "Half Nelson," "The Aura" and "Old Joy"

Must-see music docs "Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man" and Sex Pistols profile "The Filth and the Fury," as well as the Fatboy Slim music video compilation "Weapon of Choice"

LAFF guest director George Lucas' presentation of Jean-Luc Godard's "Masculine Feminine," Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai" and Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"

10 days, 11 historic theaters, more than 250 films -- what better way to begin summer in Los Angeles?

Justin Lin's The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift Finishes Third in Box Office Race

Director Justin Lin's ("Better Luck Tommorow") big-budget debut took third place in the June 16 weekend box office derby with $23.9 million, finishing behind "Cars" and "Nacho Libre." "The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift" marks Lin's second studio movie, following "Annapolis," released earlier this year.

Lin has come a long way since his first feature, "Better Luck Tomorrow," caused a sensation at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival with its dark depiction of Asian-American teens gone astray. In just three movies, Lin's gone from a low-budget indie feature to a summer blockbuster, breaking into the ranks of in-demand young Hollywood directors.

If you're thinking "sell-out," consider that Lin's success is enabling him to self-finance his next indie film, "Finishing the Game," which will reunite much of the "Better Luck Tomorrow" cast in a 70's-set satirical feature, to be produced by year-end.

Discover more about Lin's experience on "The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift" and his upcoming projects in a recent MySpace.Com Film feature article. And check back with CinemaPlanet for more updates on developments with "Finishing the Game" and Lin's rapidly accelerating career.