DAY ONE

It is the cardinal sin of every writer who’s been based in LA long enough to wax poetic about the various versions of the city that seem to exist in conversation and contradiction with one another at any single point of time. A dilemma that filmmaker and film critic Thom Andersen more or less had the final say on when it comes to cinema through his, now canonical, essay film Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), which posits that the city will always exist in a perpetual identity crisis because of how often its been remixed, redressed, deconstructed and destroyed on screen. Yet somehow it feels appropriate to exhume these questions about identity and depiction at a time where local film and television production seem to be dropping to historic lows with each passing day, with LA at risk of becoming the “Detroit of entertainment”. A development that seems to place somewhat of a blow to Andersen’s thesis: we can no longer understand the city that exists fetishized on our screens because it so rarely seems to even cross our screens. In this way the LA of today seems to rest far outside of the imaginary, crossing into far scarier territory that many are unable, or maybe unwilling, to confront, that the LA of today is the LA you actually live in.

Now in its third year the Los Angeles Festival of Movies has continued to give dimension to the fractured film culture that exists in the city, a condition that seems inconceivable in one of the few global hubs that seems synonymous with film, but which reflects a larger systemic failure to foster younger talent and more outre voices in an entertainment industry that continues to seem far more interested in venture capital money than actual artistry. In a call earlier in the day with an industry professional she remarked something to the extent of “Oh LA festivals are great, you have AFI Fest and um… LAFM”, the former known to host the premiere of films such as The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (2025) and the latter mostly held at 2220 Arts and Archives. Just as alt lit and alt comedy seem to have coalesced around the margins of their respective industries, LAFM has created a similar platform for film, with incredible overlap between all three scenes. Perhaps this is best reflected in the tote bag that adorns the festivals merch stands which reads “Los Angeles Festival of Movies Remembers Taix, LA’s Oldest French Restaurant 1927 – 2026” a wearable memorial for a now bygone hub for LA based creatives who expect you to recognize them from their Instagram handles which has elicited all sorts of reactions from festival goers. “The reaction to the Taix closure is a pseudo event and anyone who cares sincerely about it should redirect this energy to something more important” opines archivist and actor Noah Brockman. “RIP Taix, OG fucking LA establishment, I don’t care what anybody says, I am entitled to feel sad about it” replies Tee Park (director of Cece’s Interlude) Everyone has their own version of LA.

But perhaps the actual LA of today is better reflected in John Early’s Maddie’s Secret (2025), the festival’s opening film which had its US premiere at Vidiots in Eagle Rock last night. In its opening minutes Maddie, a bulimic aspiring cooking influencer played by Early jogs through Silverlake all the way to her dish washing job at the Gourmaybe test kitchen, a food content creation hub obviously modeled after Bon Appétit, before being greeted by her conniving boss Zach (played by Conner O’Malley) who screams to the staff “Who’s ready to make some content!”, a fitting reminder of what actually gets produced in LA.

With Maddie’s Secret, Early, an alt comedy mainstay best known for his surreal, wry sense of humor and, among other things, starring in cult streaming series Search Party, makes a prodigious leap into the world of cinema, flexing an emotional sensitivity and formal ambition that rarely coexists with the post ironic tenor of most contemporary alt comedy. Early’s film borrows liberally from the conventions of both 1950s melodramas, most notably the work of Douglas Sirk, and 1980s after school specials, particularly (and perhaps obviously) Kate’s Secret (1986), genres known to exaggerate and embellish but which, otherwise, were willing to tackle contemporary social issues in a straightforward manner. By drawing from these influences Early’s film defies easy expectations, of course it is a frequently raucous comedy but underneath it all what you’re met with is an extremely frank film about bulimia. Comparisons are bound to be made with Todd Haynes, who similarly recontextualized the melodrama and more broadly, the idea of the old Hollywood “women’s picture” as the domain of the queer filmmaker, with the piano stings of Michael A. Hesslein’s score in Maddie’s Secret being reminiscent of how Haynes deployed repurposed Michel Legrand compositions in May December (2023) Yet throughout the film I couldn’t help but be reminded of the work of British filmmaker Mike Leigh who made his name in the somewhat contradictory world of kitchen sink realism. Stylistically Early’s film couldn’t be further from Leigh, approximating the expressionistic visual language of Sirk, crafting various pillowy frames with cinematographer Max Lakner. Yet like Leigh Early possesses an overwhelming empathy for his titular character, going to great lengths to sketch out how their underlying condition colors how they perceive the world and how they exist within various different communities, from the Gourmaybe Test Kitchen to the Presbyterian hospital she undergoes bulimia treatment in. With both of these locations filled out by a who’s who of alt comedians, from a never been better Kate Berlant to a nervy Vanessa Bayer, characters who tumble through mentions of therapy apps, streaming TV shows and short form video content, as if they can understand themselves better, or maybe understand how they exist in LA, when they get out the other end.

It should also be noted that Maddie’s Secret marks the second time production company Dogma 3000, run by Harris Mayersohn and Danny Scharer, who both serve multiple roles on the film, have secured a major spot within the LAFM lineup, previously closing the festival with Conner O’Malley & Danny Scharar’s Rap World in 2024. The success of Dogma 3000 gestures towards the larger ethos of the festival, highlighting how independent producers can fill in the gaps of cultural production that larger studios have failed to satisfy, with Conner O’Malley’s comedy shorts, many of which hosted on YouTube shorts, becoming a mainstay for people of a certain age. A fact that was made clear to me when a blonde sorority girl with vocal fry told me that Conner O’Malley was as good live as he was in the YouTube shorts. That is to say that the work of Dogma 3000 feels uniquely resonant to Gen Z, a jaded generation who’ve grown up in a post modern culture, in part shaped by TV writers like Dan Harmon, where most comedy seems to operate under the smug assumption that everyone already knows every trope, and who’ve decided to instead find solace by blasting their brains with short form video content. In truth Maddie’s Secret is no different, as it operates with a full post ironic understanding of what it’s satirizing, but underneath this lies both a reverence and a pronounced sincerity, which in my eyes is worth celebrating.

Though it’s not lost on me that as film, not just in LA, but in the world has become more marginal, I’m writing to more and more of a niche audience, preaching to an ever shrinking choir. On Lyft to Vidiots I decided to listen intently to the radio and between The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s Stay and Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club I was reminded that the weekend of LAFM coincided with another major event, Coachella, which may be one of the few monocultural juggernauts we still have, and which made my world feel all the more small. If you notice a dearth of young people at LAFM this weekend maybe you can find solace in the idea that they’re off somewhere hopped up on molly at Justin Bieber’s headlining set rather than thinking about what’s probably actually happening. At the LAFM opening party at Grand Star Jazz Club in Chinatown I asked one of the few partygoers my age if he was seeing any movies this weekend, to which he replied “Yeah I just saw The Drama it was awesome” and when I followed up about the actual festival he replied “No, what’s that”. And just when I thought that for movies and mega music festivals, only one of which people in my age bracket seem to really care about, neither the twain shall meet I look at my phone and discover the titular Digger, from Alejandro González Iñárritu and Tom Cruise’s Digger is at Coachella.

Kate Berlant at Vidiots