AFI Fest Looks to Reassert Itself as Hollywood’s Hometown Film Festival, With Premieres From Clint Eastwood, Robert Zemeckis and Wallace and Gromit

Hollywood may be synonymous with moviemaking, but Los Angeles has historically been fickle about supporting a major film festival. AFI Fest, which will unfurl the red carpet for opening night on Wednesday, hopes to certify its status as the city’s landmark festival, especially after seeing an encouraging growth in presales this fall. On the first day of availability, advanced tickets showed a spike of 200% over last year’s edition, per American Film Institute president Bob Gazzale.

“I hate to say it, but the question abounds: ‘Are people still going to the movies?’ Yet our passes are sold out,” Gazzale tells Variety. “It says something about the terrific programming team, because they’re finding films of interest. That’s naturally going to attract an audience, no matter what city we’re in.”

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Strong programming hasn’t always guaranteed sustained support for local fests, though. The once-popular L.A. Film Festival was discontinued in 2018 after a quarter-century of play, with parent org Film Independent shifting to year-round programming. Then the LGBTQ-focused Outfest all but collapsed in 2023 following waves of layoffs and executive upheaval.

Those shifts have left room for other festivals to gain attention. The genre-focused Beyond Fest, partnered with American Cinematheque, wrapped another splashy two-week run in October, while the modestly scaled, precision-curated Los Angeles Festival of Movies is preparing its sophomore edition after offering a weekend of indies last April.

Both events have shown particular appeal to younger audiences, a trend that Gazzale also notes is present at AFI Fest, which counted its “youngest ever” group of attendees last year. It’s an encouraging statistic given the difficulties plaguing many film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival losing its lead sponsor Bell last year and Sundance making a potentially existential decision about its future in Park City.

“We support and cheer on anybody who wants to create a film festival,” Gazzale says, dismissing the notion of competition with other L.A. programming. “We see this as a very tight community of people that have a common goal.”

While Los Angeles remains a robust hub of repertory cinemas, AFI Fest, the city’s longest-running festival, essentially stands as the last major game in town for studios looking to spotlight their prestige titles. Among those banners returning is Sony Pictures Classics, which has programmed its two remaining features for the year: Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door,” which stars Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton and nabbed the Golden Lion after its Venice Film Festival premiere; and “I’m Still Here,” a political drama from director Walter Salles and Brazil’s entry in the Oscars international feature category.

“It’s very important that there be a major film festival in Los Angeles. There are so many practitioners in the business, and this is the center where movies are being made,” SPC co-president Michael Barker says. “We pursued AFI Fest. We showed ‘The Room Next Door’ as soon as it was finished. We asked them if they would have any objection to the fall festivals beforehand, because sometimes that was an issue. And they said they didn’t.”

AFI Fest’s calendar position as the last major festival of autumn offers pros and cons, with the programmers generally getting their pick to round-up the best titles of the year. But the slim span of weeks between the beginning of the fall fests and AFI’s launch also means some films get lost in the shuffle. Much of Sony Pictures Classics slate for next year, which includes well-reviewed Toronto premieres like the Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi drama “On Swift Horses” and the French rom-com “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,” finalized acquisitions too late to make AFI’s submission deadline.

“It’s a timing issue more than anything else,” Barker says.

“It’s always been a bit of a challenge that we’re part of the fall festival season, but we’re also reliant on what’s premiering at Venice or Toronto,” says Todd Hitchcock, a longtime programmer of the AFI Silver Theater, now entering his second year as director of AFI Fest. “We actually have just as large of a selection of films from the fall festival window as from the ones earlier in the year. But you’re always racing the clock on those.”

“I do not see the fall festivals as competitors and we never have,” Gazzale says. “We’re more collaborators than anything.”

Among its six red carpet premieres, AFI Festival counts two titles that have previously debuted at other fests. On Thursday, A24 will bow the Hugh Grant-led horror film “Heretic,” which debuted at Toronto. Then, Pablo Larraín’s “Maria” screens on Saturday. Netflix acquired the Maria Callas biopic ahead of its Venice premiere, setting plans to campaign Angelina Jolie for best actress.

“A big part of it’s on the studio side. This is their vision for introducing the film specific to Los Angeles and this moment on the calendar,” Hitchcock says. “Netflix is behind ‘Maria’ and they were comfortable with showcasing it this way. And A24 was always in the driver’s seat with ‘Heretic.’ They came to us and they really believed in it as a red carpet film. We have an After Dark section, where it would be completely appropriate to put it in. But A24 really had the vision to go big.”

The fest’s four world premiere carpets all hail from major studios. Netflix will debut “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” the first animated feature in nearly 20 years for stop-motion house Aardman’s most iconic duo. The opening night selection is the Disney+ documentary “Music by John Williams,” which celebrates the storied film composer with new interviews and a career retrospective. 

“AFI is the perfect home to host the first reveal of ‘Music by John Williams,’” says the doc’s director and producer Laurent Bouzereau. “I am so proud that AFI has selected a documentary film to open their festival — it is a genre that has not always been recognized equally with scripted films. … I must say that telling John’s story is a perfect example of how impactful and vital documentary can be for cinema.”

Meanwhile, Sony is launching Robert Zemeckis’ lifetime-spanning drama “Here,” which reunites the director with his “Forrest Gump” stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. The closing night selection is Warner Bros.’ courtroom drama “Juror No. 2,” which marks the 94-year-old Clint Eastwood’s 40th narrative feature as a director.

Hitchcock says “it is no way a conscious theme,” but a motif does emerge among that lineup. Each world premiere feature is creatively driven by a much-celebrated, Oscar-winning icon of the industry (yes, Wallace and Gromit do fall into this category). It demonstrates how AFI Fest positions itself as a home-team advantage festival for studios and distributors, while also centering a mindful evocation of the film industry’s past laurels.

“The festival really does span the Mount Rushmore of American film,” says Gazzale on the red carpet selections. “Celebrating the masters is in the core DNA of AFI, but who we also are is gathering a diversity of voices.”

Along with those starry premieres, AFI Fest will present around 150 titles, including auteur efforts from Cannes like Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides,” David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds” and Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada,” music-focused titles like the documentary “Devo” and Alex Ross Perry’s form-bending “Pavements,” fall fest premieres like RaMell Ross’ radically shot Colson Whitehead adaptation “Nickel Boys” and the Amy Adams feature “Nightbitch,” and the annual AFI Conservatory Showcase section that presents shorts made by fellows at AFI’s film school.

AFI Fest premises itself as a gathering to showcase “the year in cinema,” much as the New York Film Festival does earlier in the fall. But while that East Coast gathering unfurls across two weeks — centralized at Lincoln Center before sprawling to other theaters — AFI Fest is a much more compressed affair. The festival has downscaled in recent years, contracting its week-long structure to a five-day frame after the COVID pandemic, with all screenings now housed in the TCL Chinese Theatres.

“Every city is different,” Gazzale says about the truncated format. “The formula of five days of film in one central location is really the equation that works best for this community.”

“It’s a very comfortable footprint with the five days. It’s very action-packed,” Hitchcock says. “We’re not so much thinking in terms of expansion. At the same time, we can keep going from here. It’ll always be something to tinker with and to think about what more is possible. It’ll never be done.”