Official Selections FAQ

If your project is an Official Selection at Film Invasion Los Angeles 2026, Congratulations!

This page has the answers to common questions we get every festival. Your Weekly Update will point you here, but you can also always access this FAQ from the FI-Los Angeles drop-down menu near the top of the page.

Anything not covered? Just ask us in an email and we will answer you right away… plus we may add the answer here!

Events

Opening Night Gala

• When/where: Opening night — Thursday, August 20, 2026, at 8 PM at Solar Studios, 3909 San Fernando Road #114, Glendale, CA 91204.
• Your Official Selection includes two All-Access Passes — each pass allows free admission for one person to the Gala.
• Bringing more people? Wonderful! Tickets to the public are $25, but we give you a discount code in our weekly email that cuts that down to just $10 for your extra guests.
• Age policy: the ticketing site lists 21+ because of our sponsors, but this is a private event — filmmakers and guests under 21 are welcome. Our bartenders simply won’t serve alcohol to minors.

Closing Night Mixer

• When/where: Sunday, August 23, 2026 at 8 PM at LOOK Dine-In Cinemas, Glendale (in the main bar), right after the final screenings.
• Free and open to the public — bring your cast, crew, and friends!

Panels

We program industry panels for our filmmakers each year. This year:

• Indie Film Distribution — Learn the ins and outs of indie film distribution from industry professionals.
• Sex in Cinema: Female Perspective (Tentative) — (full description coming)

Free to all pass holders.

Screenplay Awards Ceremony

• Date/Time: TBD.
• Each screenplay Official Selection’s writer or writing team takes turns at the front of the theater, pitching or simply telling the audience about their script.
• A heads-up so expectations are accurate: this is a celebration of screenwriting — please do not expect agents or literary managers in the audience.
• The three Grand Jury Awards (one per screenplay category) are announced at the end of the Ceremony.

Awards & “The Poppy”

• We do not hold an awards ceremony for the Films. Here’s why: with multiple categories and runtime classes, reading a long awards list would eat into valuable theater time. We hold the Screenplay Awards Ceremony because the screenplays do not get a screening; the films do.
• How film awards are announced: Q&A moderators announce select awards at the screenings. Plus, our Best in Fest winners are announced at their screenings and presented with our custom trophy, The Poppy, in person.
• The complete awards list is sent to everyone soon after the festival, published on our website, and published to social media shortly after the festival (see “After the Festival”).

Passes & Tickets

Your All-Access Passes

• Every Official Selection receives two All-Access Passes — free entry to every festival event (Gala, screenings, panels, mixer).
• Passes show the names that you provide us on the Submitter’s Portal, but we encourage you to share/rotate them day to day among your team if that helps to support your fellow filmmakers.
• Pick up your Passes at the Gala or at festival HQ in the LOOK Dine-In Cinemas, Glendale upstairs lobby — just walk towards Theaters 7 to 10.

Guest tickets & your discount code

• Tickets are $15 to the public.
• You have a unique discount code that gives an unlimited number of your guests a $5 discount — find your code in your weekly update / portal and share it with your crew, family, friends, and people you meet in line at the supermarket.
• Codes are case-sensitive, and the discounted price shows after someone clicks Checkout on the next page (a quirk of the ticketing platform).
• FI-LA 2026 Ticketing Page

Logistics

Venue & Parking

• LOOK Dine-In Cinemas, Glendale, 128 N Artsakh Ave, Glendale, CA 91206 — all screenings, panels, and the Closing Mixer. The Exchange Parking Garage (115 N. Artsakh Ave., across the street) costs $1 for up to 4 hours with theater validation. Additional time is only $2 per hour.
• Solar Studios, 3909 San Fernando Road #114, Glendale, CA 91204 — Opening Night Gala only. Parking is readily available on the surrounding streets, and there is some underground parking available to the early birds.

When to arrive / red carpet

• Festival HQ is in the LOOK Dine-In Cinemas, Glendale upstairs lobby — just head towards Theaters 7 to 10. Check in there to collect your passes and see what events are happening.
• If you’re coming for your film’s screening or for the Screenplay Awards Ceremony, please arrive at least 15–20 minutes early. That gives you time to park, find our HQ, and do your red-carpet photos and a brief interview with one of our hosts.

Hotel

• Discounted rooms at the Residence Inn by Marriott, next door to the theater. Rooms sleep up to 4 persons and availability is limited.
• Book by Thursday, July 30, 2026. Reserve here: Residence Inn by Marriott — Official FI-LA Page.
• There are no festival events at the hotel — it’s lodging only. But their lobby is a great place to hang out!

Airfare

We don’t have an airline sponsor yet — our budget goes straight into the theater and crew. We’d love an airline partner down the road; for now, no travel discount, sorry!

Your Deliverables

Everything below is tracked in your Submitter Portal (link in your weekly update). The weekly update shows your live checklist; here’s what each item means.

• Pics & Info form — your synopsis, logline, premiere status, credits, social handles, and screening preferences. The fastest way to make sure we represent your film correctly.
• Poster & Still — poster 2:3 portrait (~1080 × 1620), still 16:9 landscape (~1920 × 1080); JPG / PNG / WebP, up to 5 MB each. Upload only artwork you have the rights to use. (Screenplay selections: a poster is optional — we can create a placeholder.)
• Trailer — paste your URL in the portal. If your thumbnail shows a black box, your video’s privacy is too restrictive: set Vimeo to Public (or “Hide from Vimeo” but embeddable) / YouTube to Public or Unlisted, not Private.
• DCP delivery — via AutoDCP: you’ll receive a personalized festletter link to submit your DCP (watch your weekly update / email).
• DCP quality check — we confirm your DCP plays and is the right length, but please spot-check your own master: open the .mxf in VLC or DCP-O-Matic and watch for audio glitches or stray watermarks before the festival. A clean screening is on all of us.
• Premiere status — tell us if your screening is a World/US/LA/etc. premiere so we can announce it correctly.

Promotion

Laurels

Announce your selection proudly! Grab your Official Selection laurels here: your FI-LA 2026 laurels. Tag us so we can amplify.

Social media

Follow and tag @filminvasionla on Instagram, Facebook, and BlueSky, and visit filminvasionla.com. We promote every film and screening — tagging us helps us boost you back.

Merch

Festival merch (tees, beanies, mugs — motto and all) is at the merch table and online: discover-indie-film.printify.me.

Policies

Online / virtual screenings

FI-LA is a theatrical festival — screenings happen in the room, with an audience. If that ever changes (we occasionally explore an optional, paywalled virtual option with a sponsor), we’ll tell you here first.

After the Festival

• Awards results — the complete winners list is posted shortly after we close (alongside the in-person announcements). Awards laurels and trophy-ordering details will be sent to winners after the festival.
• Photos & video — our photographer/videographer content takes a little while to process; we’ll share it within two to three weeks.
• Leave us a review — if you had a good time, a 5-star FilmFreeway review genuinely helps us grow (and grow what we can offer you next time): go to your FilmFreeway page → Reviews → Review Festival. If anything fell short of 5 stars, please tell us first so we can fix it.
• Stay in the family (alumni):
  • Mixers — periodic get-togethers for networking and collaboration.
  • Podcast — longer-form interviews on the Discover Indie Film podcast (those 15-minute theater Q&As are never enough). Book a slot: calendly.com/difwins/podcast.
  • Filmmakers Board — alumni are invited to help judge next cycle’s Filmmaker Awards.

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Still have a question? Reply to your weekly update or email info@discoverindiefilm.org — a real human (hi 👋) reads every one.