by Lissah Lorberbaum
AFI FEST Daily News

FILMEX 1971 Program Cover

In November 1971 the first Los Angeles Film Exposition - FILMEX - rolled out the red carpet at Grauman's Chinese Theater.

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepard, and Timothy Bottoms, made its world premiere as the first film at the first FILMEX.

The film comes full circle now with the successor to FILMEX, AFI FEST 2006 presented by Audi.

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW kicks off the 24 Hour Movie Marathon and Fundraiser at AFI FEST 2006, starting Saturday, November 11, at Noon, at the Mark Goodson Screening Room on AFI's Los Angeles campus, 2021 N. Western Ave.

FILMEX 1972 Program Cover

The marathon is a 35-year feature film retrospective, featuring hits, sleepers and classic trailers from FILMEX and AFI FEST, plus surprise snippets and special guests.

Marathon viewers can raise money for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, by soliciting pledges for each film they watch. Marathon-goers receive a passport and earn stamps for each film. The more films they see, the more money they raise for The Global Fund.

FILMEX 1974 Program Cover

In addition to the 24 Hour Movie Marathon, AFI FEST 2006 features Bogdanovich, in person, performing his one-man show, "Sacred Monsters," bringing to life his time spent with John Ford, Otto Preminger, Orson Welles, John Wayne, and Howard Hawks.

"I have a fond place in my heart for AFI FEST and FILMEX for many reasons," Bogdanovich told Variety.

FILMEX 1975 Program Cover

His film, DIRECTED BY JOHN FORD, also screens - Tuesday, November 7, 7:00 PM, at the Linwood Dunn Theater - to an audience of Orson Welles, Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood enthusiasts.

Bogdanovich has updated his essential film about American moviemaking, including in the new version interviews with Eastwood, Spielberg and Martin Scorsese.

The FILMEX Backstory

Decades before television and the Internet would provide access to an international menagerie of visual media, the impetus for FILMEX sprung from Gary Essert and Gary Abraham, the festival's founders.

Both "The Garys" felt the need for public access to a wider range of films in Los Angeles.

FILMEX 1976 Program Cover

FILMEX attendees in 1971 viewed more than 70 films, including THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, DURANTE L'ESTATE and an Alfred Hitchcock movie marathon.

LA Weekly lauded FILMEX for bringing "a bracing dose of international cinema to a city that had laid claims to being a center of Western culture."

In the mid-1970s, FILMEX became the largest film event in the world, attracting as many as 120,000 attendees each year.

People tend to forget "that in the 1970s there was only one cable channel," Barbara Zicka Smith, associate director of FILMEX, 1977 to 1983, told the Los Angeles Times. "There were no video stores. It was a very different time than now."

FILMEX 1977 Program Cover

In retrospect, Smith said, people are amazed that FILMEX filled two theaters - one with 1,400 seats, the other 800 - five times a day.

The FILMEX movie marathon in 1975 focused on science fiction and lasted 50 hours.

In 1976, director Alfred Hitchcock arrived for the premiere of his film FAMILY PLOT in a Universal Studios tour bus. That same year, THE BAD NEWS BEARS was the closing film.

ANNIE HALL, directed by Woody Allen, made its world premiere at FILMEX 1977.

FILMEX 1978 Program Cover

And then there were the elephants. More than once, real-life pachyderms lined the red-carpet, welcoming FILMEX stars and attendees.

By 1985, the final year of FILMEX, the festival had become a beloved cinematic tradition.

AFI's adoption of FILMEX in 1987 ensured the continuation of the annual festival, bringing 20 more years of opening nights and international films.

"We believe that Los Angeles, the acknowledged film making capitol of the world, should have the finest, most respected and best film festival in the world," said American Film Institute President and CEO Jean Picker Firstenberg in 1987 announcing FILMEX would live on as AFI FEST.

FILMEX 1979 Program Cover

"It's nice when the transition is almost more of a success than the original," said longtime LA festival figure Wendy Goldberg, "something that changes with the times and adapts with such synergy."

Writer and actor Buck Henry added: "Congratulations to the AFI for carrying on FILMEX's proud tradition of scheduling such an intriguing volume of films from all over the world that virtually every potential audience member could be assured of seeing something that would really irritate them."

FILMEX & AFI FEST Legacy DIRECTED BY JOHN FORD Updated by Peter Bogdanovich November 7, 7:00 PM Linwood Dunn Theater AFI Collection: Silent Films HEAD OVER HEELS and MABEL's DRAMATIC CAREER November 8, 7:00 PM Linwood Dunn Theater Sacred Monsters One-Man Show starring Peter Bogdanovich November 9, 7:00 PM Linwood Dunn Theater FILMEX Party November 10, 6:00 PM The LOFT AFI FEST Rooftop Village ArcLight Hollywood 24 Hour Movie Marathon November 11, Noon Mark Goodson Screening Room AFI's Los Angeles Campus THE LAST PICTURE SHOW TURKISH DELIGHT THE LAST WAVE ERASERHEAD THE WIZ FLASH GORDON THE RETURN OF THE SEACAUCUS 7 CAT PEOPLE EATING RAOUL STRANGER THAN PARADISE I'M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA THE END 35-Year Database Films & Awards from FILMEX and AFIFEST and Baseline StudioSystems www.AFI.com/AFIFEST 35-Year Timespine Videos, Trailers & Photos from FILMEX and AFI FEST and the America Film Institute www.AFI.com/AFIFEST