The first annual Downtown Film Festival, Los Angeles (DFFLA), the first dedicated film festival in the historic core of the Entertainment Capital of the World, announced its 2008 programming. The five-day event, August, 13-17, will present 23 feature and 180 short films at venues throughout Downtown L.A., from the historic movie palaces on Broadway Avenue to Barker Block and SCI-Arc in Downtown's Arts District.

The festival is presented by Barker Block live/work lofts.  Please visit the festival's website.

IFC's "In Search of a Midnight Kiss," by director Alex Holdridge, will be presented as the Opening Night Film on Wednesday, August 13th, in a special Gala program at the historic Orpheum Theater to benefit the nonprofit Los Angeles Historic Theater Foundation (www.lahtf.org). Variety said the film "recalls Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' in its celebration of a cityscape…" Filmmaker Magazine proclaimed "It is so well- written, charming and beautifully photographed that it is inconceivable to think audiences not falling in love" with it. An after-screening Gala party will be held at the penthouse space of the Pacific Electric Lofts building.

The Los Angeles premiere of "Flow," a documentary feature from director Irena Salina that was a hit earlier this year at Sundance Film Festival, has been selected as the Closing Night film. The film takes an unflinching look at the world's diminishing supply of fresh water as the intersection of politics, pollution and human rights.

In the beginning of a new tradition, the Festival's Centerpiece Gala presentation is devoted to celebrating Downtown L.A.'s unique starring role in the early development of the city's movie industry and American cinema. Downtown's Historic Theater District contains more architecturally significant movie theaters than anywhere else in the world. This year's Centerpiece film is the 1929 classic silent film "Piccadilly," starring silver screen siren Anna May Wong – the Silent Era's most significant female Asian-American actress. (Wong was born in Downtown's Chinatown neighborhood.) The film will be presented at the historic Los Angeles Theatre.

Other highlights include the Los Angeles premiere screenings of Overture's "Traitor" by writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff (screenwriter of 2004's blockbuster hit "The Day After Tomorrow") and starring Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce and Jeff Daniels; "Guest of Cindy Sherman," a documentary about the reclusive superstar artist-photographer; "Remembering Phil," starring Nicholas Turturro and Don Castellaneta (best known as the voice of Homer Simpson); and "Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans," a documentary feature exploring the roots of a historic African-American community that became the birthplace of jazz and a progenitor of the civil rights movement.

In addition to film screenings, the festival will present a digital arts festival, in conjunction with the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art (www.lacda.com), and Sustainable L.A. – a full-day of "green" programming for the urban citizen that includes panel discussions, a farmer's market and family-friendly activities.

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