Returning for a 4th year of jam-packed film and fun from March 5th through 8th is the Wayne Federman International Film Festival. Held once again at the Cinefamily theatre in Los Angeles, this year’s fest bodes even more fun than the last.
What is the Wayne Federman International Film Festival, you ask? Well, it’s the brainchild of comedian Wayne Federman. You know. Wayne Federman. Veteran comedian, actor, and writer, you’ve seen him on everything from “The Tonight Show” to “The 40 Year Old Virgin” to “Knocked Up” to “New Girl” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” You’ve heard his material both in his own stand-up routines and as head monologue writer for “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”, so you know how influenced he is by the world around him. Everyone is influenced by something, especially comedians. Their life’s blood is inspired by the world around us, including films. So, why not blend the two into one event. And that’s exactly what Federman does with his film festival.
As Federman tells it, “About five years before I did the festival, a friend of mine rented out Cinefamily for his birthday. It was a writer named Rob Cohen who is a “Simpsons” writer, and [he] rented it out for his birthday and showed “Batman” the movie from 1966. . .So he shows that movie to his friends and we all come and celebrate his birthday and it was a blast! This is a cool little theatre. Just a nice – it’s small, it’s got a great vibe to it – and it’s lined by those portraits of the dead. Nothing makes it more comfortable than having a dead silent film star stare at me when I’m watching a movie. [laughing]”
Always with the idea of Cinefamily in the back of his mind, the next kernel to sprout was that of a festival. “[W]hen I got the idea of the festival four years ago, a friend of mine was working at Cinefamily. And I said, ‘I have this idea. What do you think?’ And she thought, ‘Yea, this might just go.’ So we talked to the programmer there, this guy named Hadrian. . . Hadrian thought, ‘Yea, let’s give it a try. Let’s see what happens.’ I know a lot of comedians because I’ve been doing it since the ‘80’s. And I feel like I’m also a bridge between – I did stand-up with Larry David and I’ve done stand-up with Kumail. I’ve done comedy from the alternative comedians to Seinfeld and all those guys. So I feel like have a wide breadth of comedians I can choose from just from people I’ve known from the years. I always try to balance it between younger and older.”
Balancing that “younger and older” is just what Federman is doing again this year. While past comedy curators have included Bill Burr, Sarah Silverman, Garry Shandling, Kevin Nealon, Nick Kroll, T.J. Miller and Margaret Cho, this year’s line-up is even more stellar. Kicking off the fest on March 5th at 7:30 p.m. is Sasha Baron Cohen with his cinematic inspiration, Mikael Nygaard’s fabulously funny “Klown”. (One of my personal faves this year, according to Federman, souvenir “Klown” underwear is for the wearing by moviegoers!) Friday finds Doug Benson’s Movie Interruption with “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”. A unique concept, Benson and several comedic cohorts stop the movie at various points for actual discussion and comedic commentary. Can’t wait to see what they do with Mickey Rooney’s bits in the film. Also presenting films this year are Paul Scheer with “Ghostbusters”, Chris Hardwick and “Fletch!”, Will Forte delivers “MacGruber”, Lauren Lapkus goes big with “Big” while Kumail Nanjiani goes the horror route with “The Descent.” An eclectic line-up to be sure!
Federman is particularly proud not only of the fact that each comedian makes the very personal selections but that the festival has been able to obtain the desired prints of each for screening. “Once in awhile we have a conflict. For example, this year Kumail, who’s doing the last film, [is] a horror movie buff and he was caught between “The Thing” and “Descent”. So we looked into it and “The Thing” was playing at the Nuart the week before so it wasn’t available. So that’s how we got “The Descent.” But usually we’ve been very lucky. For the most part we’ve gotten the films. The hardest print to find so far was for Margaret Cho’s “Darling” from 1965 – the John Schlesinger movie. That was very hard to get a good print of that. It was interesting. We sort of did a hybrid – print for half of it and then we had a digital thing for part of it where the print was out.” When it comes to Wayne Federman, where there’s a will, there’s a way!
Already looking ahead to the 5th Annual Wayne Federman International Film Festival, Federman notes, “There’s plenty of comedians and plenty of comedians I still want to get. There’s just plenty of comedians and a lot of times they’re busy. Let me give you an example. I talked to Larry David who’s doing this Broadway show and so he talked to me about wanting to do it as well but he was busy last year and obviously now he’s in NY.” Also on Federman’s comedic wish list are Chris Rock, Louis CK and Janeane Garofalo, to name a few. “I’m gonna try to do an East Coast version of it, either this year or next year for our big 5th anniversary.”
The 4th Annual Wayne Federman International Film Festival runs March 5-8, 2015 at Cinefamily, 611 North Fairfax in Los Angeles. Tickets are $14 or FREE Cinefamily members. For more information on the festival, or to buy tickets, go to http://www.cinefamily.org/films/the-4th-annual-wayne-federman-international-film-festival.
