Screenings and celebrations for the Echo Park Film Center 10 year anniversary weekend

“Sell your TV and come to the cinema” is the defining phrase on the Echo Park Film Center website, and while we’re keeping our TV (just got rid of cable) we are very excited for its upcoming 10 year anniversary weekend, which takes place from Friday, December 9 through Sunday, December 11. In celebration, the Film Center is organizing some live music, food, receptions, speeches, selling new merchandise, and of course hosting a lot of film screenings in various locations (including the Vons parking lot!).

Here’s the scoop from the website:

Friday, December 9 from 8–11:00 pm
Libations, live music and films at Stories Books & Cafe, 1716 Sunset Boulevard.

Saturday, December 10 from 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Family filmmaking workshops and open house at Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N. Alvarado Street.

Saturday, December 10 from 7–10:30 pm
Filmmobile silent films screening in the Vons Parking Lot, 1342 N. Alvarado Street.

Sunday, December 11 from 2–6:00 pm
Punk Rock Songs & Cinema at The Smell, 247 S Main Street.

Sunday, December 11 from 6:30–10:30 pm
Reception and the Premiere of City of Angels 11: An EPFC Youth Film Project at Downtown Independent, 251 S. Main Street.

Echo Park Film Center back in town with new classes/events

The Echo Park Film Center is back in town after its 2011 Summer Tour, during which they took the film mobile from coast to coast offering classes and workshops in dozens of cities. Now they are back with a new schedule of classes and screenings for all of Echo Park (and Los Angeles) to enjoy.

First off, Friday, September 2 is the launch party for the EPFC Audience Photographs book – a series of photos taken at every one of their film screenings and events at the Echo Park location over a couple of years (we wrote about it last December). The book has 180 pages of these color photos, which you can get for $20 (for $30 they’ll give you a copy of the Sound We See DVD, the summer youth film workshop taught by EPFC Summer Artist In Residence, Merv Espina). Be there at 8:00 pm!

Upcoming Classes

All students must pre-register. Call or email for more information on participating. Space is limited.

EPFC Fall Youth Class: City of Angels
Thursdays 4:30 – 6:30 pm; September – December 2011
A 12-week after school workshop where students will learn the fundamentals of documentary filmmaking while creating individual short films celebrating family and community stories.Open to local youth ages 12 – 19; no experience necessary. All equipment and materials provided free of charge by EPFC.

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Echo Park Film Center rummage sale & how you can help

Today we received an email from a beloved friends of Echo Park – the Echo Park Film Center. As of June 15, the EPFC is losing a rented space they call the ANNEX located in Glendale Blvd. In the email, they say, “This presents a bit of a crisis for our organization.” And they need your help:

We have spent the past 14 months building out the space to create a “living and breathing” film workshop, lab and studio. We have accumulated a 2,000 title Super 8 and 16mm print library. We have animation stands, 16mm editing flatbeds, 35mm projectors, cinema chairs, props, sets, lights, and other assorted film paraphernalia. It has become our second home.

In the next few weeks we will ask for volunteers to help us catalog and move the bulk of the important and critical items to another location. However, this is where we need your help. We have nowhere to move the stuff to and would hate to simply rent a storage unit where the community would have no access to the gear and equipment.

Thus, we are looking for an alternative space.

If you know of a 1000-2000 square feet of space available to help store their archives, please let them know.

In addition, the EPFC, is also holding a rummage sale this weekend on Sunday, May 29 and Monday, May 30, each at different locations. Here’s the info:

Sunday, May 29 at the ANNEX
From noon – 4:00 pm in Atwater Village
at 1821 Tyburn Street in Glendale

Monday, May 30 at the Echo Park Film Center
From 9:00 am – 4:00 pm in Echo Park
at 1200 N Alvarado Street

They are partnering with Machine Project for the block-wide sale. Some of the items for sale include cameras, projectors, older computers, films, DVDs, VHS tapes, etc. The Sunday Sale will feature items they longer need or don’t have room for: furniture, costumes, props, sets and some film/video-related items. Anything not sold Sunday will be available at EPFC for Monday’s sale.

PS click here for the Film Center screening schedule, which is awesome and amazing and totally worth it!

The faces of the Echo Park Film Center audience

The Echo Park Film Center has posted a series of photos on its blog of the many audiences of the center’s film screenings going back almost a year and a half. Audiences range from just a couple of people to a packed room, some cradling a glass of what appears to be wine (err I mean, grape juice), others making some funny faces and poses. More photos after the jump at at the Echo Park Film Center Blog.

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Echo Park Film Center screening during Park[ing] Day LA

In addition to the Park[ing] Day festivities throughout LA and the Echo Park Time Bank park up on Echo Park Avenue (which we wrote about yesterday), the Echo Park Film Center is hosting its 4th annual Park[ing] Day LA 2010 Ride-In Movie and Pot Luck Dinner at Echo Park Lake on Friday. Meet up on Park and Logan, the event starts at 6:00 pm with some tasty eats, and the screening at 7:00 pm.

The Echo Park Film Center will be screening “Breaking Away” on the side of their FilmMobile, the eco-friendly cinema and film school on wheels. Reclaim great public space and join the EPFC as they regenerate the long and noble tradition of itinerant cinema.

Just in case you missed it: “Park themes range from Shakespeare in the Park[ing] to Dog Park[ing], from a Western Hoedown to a country picnic, from a Pedestrian Plaza to a Village Square. Park-ticipants include activists, artists, architects and all sorts of folks who simply want to engage the community in a discussion of public space and how it’s allocated.”

See you there!

Stop Motion Mini Film Festival at Echo Park Film Center

This Saturday, August 28th at 8:00 pm, Stop Motion Magazine will be hosting a stop motion film festival at the Echo Park Film Center. An array of stop motion short films will be shown that feature puppets, clay, sand, cut-outs, toys and legos. Prizes and awards will be handed out by professional stop motion animators. But the grand prize (the coveted “Purple Monkey” Award) will be awarded based on the audience’s decision!

Festival is open to everyone. Cost is $5. The Echo Park Film Center is located at 1200 N. Alvarado Street.

Upcoming EPFC Filmmobile Screenings

Friday, August 20 @ 8:00 pm – KILLER OF SHEEP
Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouses. It was shot on location in Watts in a series of weekends on a budget of less than $10,000, most of which was grant money. Finished in 1977 and shown sporadically, its reputation grew and grew until it won a prize at the 1981 Berlin International Film Festival. Since then, the Library of Congress has declared it a national treasure as one of the first fifty on the National Film Registry.

Friday, August 27 @ 8:00 pm – INTOLERANCE
For the last event of the 2010 Filmmobile Summer Screening Series, we’re excited to present DW Griffith’s 1916 silent epic. “Professor Theodore Huff, one of the leading film critics of the first half of the twentieth century stated that it was the only motion picture worthy of taking its place alongside Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the masterpieces of Michelangelo, etc. as a separate work of art.” –Wikipedia. LIVE MUSIC BY DUBLAB.

All screenings are free and open to the public. The locations are secret until a few hours before the screening. You can call (213-484-8846), email (info@echoparkfilmcenter.org) or follow them on Twitter (http://twitter.com/EPFCfilmmobile).

Echo Park Film Center’s Filmmobile Screenings

The Filmmobile is back from its summer hiatus to bring you films on wheels screened in unusual outdoor locations. Here’s what’s coming up:

MI VIDA LOCA – Friday, August 6 at 8:00 pm
Mi Vida Loca tells the story of young Mexican-American women in Los Angeles and the struggles they have in a life of gangs, drugs, and personal betrayal. Mousie (Seidy López) and Sad Girl (Angel Aviles) are best friends from childhood, growing up in gang-infested Echo Park and remaining loyal to each other. But when Sad Girl sleeps with Mousie’s boyfriend (a drug dealer who is killed) and becomes pregnant, their friendship is ruptured. As the violence of their neighborhood erupts around them, they must try to stay together as friends despite their betrayals. This is an unforgiving look at a world where women seem to have no choice but to raise their children, deal drugs, and survive by whatever means available.

ROLLER BOOGIE – Friday, August 13 at 8:00 pm
“Roller Boogie is one movie you won’t want to miss! In addition to the roller skating scenes, the fantastic music, slapstick humor–and tender love scenes, you’ll find some of the cutest guys you’d ever hope to meet. Jim Bray stars as Bobby James, the skating champion (and Olympic hopeful) who sweeps pretty co-star Linda Blair off her feet (literally). In real life, Jim’s a skater, but now that he’s had a taste of acting, he really thinks he might like to make a career of it. And when you see Jim in the movie, you’ll have to agree he’s the cutest thing on wheels.” – Tiger Beat Magazine

All screenings are free and open to the public. The locations are secret until a few hours before the screening. You can call (213-484-8846), email (info@echoparkfilmcenter.org) or follow them on Twitter (http://twitter.com/EPFCfilmmobile).

Echo Park Film Center closed in July

We just got our (at the least) weekly email from the Echo Park Film Center. The Center will be closed for the month of July so that they can “tour, make films, and plot and plan for the coming season.” It seems that a couple of them are even taking the Trans-Siberian Railway through China, Mongolia and Russia. Jealous!

They will return sometime in August, but you still have one more chance to get your summer film fix this Friday, July 2 when the Filmmobile screens “The Savage Eye.” This “dramatized documentary” from 1959 follows the newly-divorced Judith on a journey through Los Angeles where she encounters all sorts of unsavory characters. The film “provides a peephole into the seedier side of a long gone Los Angeles.”

The screening is FREE and open to anyone, and starts at 8:00 pm. The location is somewhere along the 7000 block of Hollywood Blvd. between Sycamore and Orange. Keep an eye out on the Filmmobile Twitter page for more detailed info.

Upcoming Echo Park Film Center Screenings

Thursday, June 17 @ 8:00 pm – OPEN SCREEN
Our quarterly cinematic free-for-all dares you to share your film with the feisty EPFC audience. Any genre! Any style! New, old, work-in-progress! First come, first screened; one film per filmmaker; 10 minute maximum. DVD, VHS, mini-DV, DV-CAM, Super 8, 8mm, 16mm. FILMMAKERS GET IN FREE!

Monday, June 21 @ 7:30 pm – FILMMAKERS ALLIANCE
Join us for the latest crop of local indies hosted by Filmmakers Alliance and get inspired to greenlight yourself! FILMMAKERS IN ATTENDANCE! FREE!

Thursday, June 24 and Friday, June 25 @ 8:00 – TIJUANA SHOWCASE
Join EPFC and guest curator and filmmaker Giancarlo Ruiz for a special two-night showcase of the best new cinematic work from Tijuana. Giancarlo Ruiz is a filmmaker and an actor. He is also co-founder of the collective “La Luciernaga Colectivo Escenico” with Raquel Presa in Tijuana and the acting troupe “The Travellin’ Zoo” with Joseph J. Stephen and Wayne Shi in San Diego. Ruiz is also co-founder of the annual film festival RECORTOS48 in the city of Tijuana. So many good films are being made in Tijuana right now that we had t o fill two nights! Each night will be a completely different program so be sure to be at both! FILMMAKER/CURATOR GIANCARLO RUIZ IN ATTENDANCE!