Female-Produced Film Festival Uplifts Women in the Film Industry
Creator of La Femme Film Festival Leslie LaPage. (Picture by Deloria Gilchrist)
The La Femme International Film Festival (LAFIFF) is a women-created media that reaches audiences and impacts communities globally positively. The festival will be held in Beverly Hills, California from October 14-17, 2021.
The festival celebrates, supports and helps to advance content creation by women in the film industry. This includes producers, writers and directors. Some of the ways LAFIFF has advanced the careers of over 1,000 artists is through educational seminars, programming and networking events.
LAFIFF Creator Leslie LaPage wanted to create a space that supports women to feel free to produce their films.
La Femme International Film Festival holds its 17th festival in October of 2021. (Picture taken from Instagram)
"We have always strived to be the leader who is copied as we are the first to launch in most aspects of festival content and offerings," LaPage said. "We wanted to treat women fairly and universally who create films worldwide. We represent women of color from all walks of life and all identifying women."
LaPage has been in the film industry since she was five years old. In her 20s, she started working behind the scenes at TV companies, including HBO, Lifetime TV, BET, MTV and Nickelodeon. However, while working for a major film festival in 2004, she saw the lack of support for women in the film and TV industry.
"While sitting at a coffee joint at the foot of a ski village in Utah, I had a flash of awareness," she said. “When starting my company, I was met with a lot of resistance and told, 'No, you cannot do this,' 'No one will come to see women's content,' and 'No, you will never get sponsors.' So that first year, I launched with 35 films over two days, and we were packed."
LAFIFF contains films from all over the world, ranging from psycho-thriller, horror and romantic comedy.
LaPage said that it surprised her that most audiences thought film festivals tend to program what they like and not what a global audience demands in programming. But, she said that's how LAFIFF stands out.
"That is what we are very successful in doing is programming a full range of genres," LaPage said.
LAFIFF’s other ventures are special events, panels, special screenings and award shows.
A past La Femme holds event. (Picture taken from Instagram page)
LaPage hopes that the film festival will encourage other women filmmakers to create and produce films despite the rejections of others.
"Stop letting people tell you cannot succeed," LaPage said. "But most importantly, educate yourself as we women must be smarter than men to make it, which means we need to know all aspects of the business, creation and marketing."
Learn more about the La Femme International Film Festival by clicking here.