FESTIVAL UPDATES:
HAPPY NOIR YEAR to this festival and it's future lucky cash prize winners and distribution deal getters. If you are lucky enough to be chosen for this festival, you will be hearing DIRECTLY from Carey Westbrook and his top notch production team in regards to the many opportunities your neo-noir talent has earned. We look forward to this upcoming festival being the best EVER and we couldn't have done it for these past 13 years without YOU!!
Be sure to see our good Academy Award winning friend Derek Cianfrance's new movie ROOFMAN in theaters October 10! Carey Westbrook has worked with Derek on many projects throughout the years and we continue to support him in all of his future endeavors.
CARD GAME PUBLICATION, As we support the rise of futurism, trans-humanism, and the advancement of A.I. Chat GPT stories and movies, we also ask the question: "What are you gonna do when the grid goes down?!" What fun entertainment will we have when you can no longer poke your Pokemon or you can't enter the old internet streets at all? Will you be ready to return to the board games and classic card games we used to play? We would like to support your idea in the Neo Noir card game category. Old board games like Clue and Carey Westbrook's new card game BODYZPELZ (go to lanneff.com and get your copy now) are the new neo noir rave, at least they are as far as we're concerned. Enter our neo noir card game category and the best card game will be produced into an actual card game! Write a story for BODYZPELZ the card game and we'll produce it in our short BODYZPELZ webisode series that will run on our website and all social media platforms.
A.I. is now a BILLION dollar storytelling industry that you can cash in on from the privacy of your own home. Everything and everyone you need to make a short film is in your computer and imagination. Do you have a short neo noir masterpiece that outshines the cat drama "slop" and instagram spam? If so, enter your best A.I. written script and or A.I. short in our new A.I. Neo Noir Film and Script categories! We will produce the best A.I. script as a short and the top film and script are eligible for a $100 prize.
LANNEFF presents a new sub-genre contest for a limited time! PUGWOOLY is fantasy kid friendly entertainment, because kids are the future, by golly! Where is the suitable entertainment for them?! It is up to us to create the future we want to see! Send your best kid friendly educational / fantasy / short story / video to us! The winner will get $100 and we will help to find a distributor and / or publisher for the winner and ten runner-ups! Your script or short cannot be more than 10 minutes or 10 pages. See an example of the kind of work we'd like to see on lanneff.com, our website or youtube on the pugwooly channel!
CONGRATULATIONS to 37 of 2024's neo-noir creators, writers, and filmmakers that we helped to secure management, distribution, and production deals!! Last year was our biggest year ever! We thank you for your great work, talent, and you may thank us by showing your best neo noir talents to this world! We want to sincerely thank the hardest working staff in neo noir history, THE LANNEFF staff, along with the incomparable guidance / mentorship of Academy Award winner, our friends, Derek Cianfrance and Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling, SMG Distribution, Bill Murray, and all of our partners and advising talent agencies who wish to remain anonymous. We certainly could not produce this festival without you!
Until October 31st, C.L. Westbrook, LANNEFF director, will partner with The Haunt Walking Tours L.A. group to bring a neo noir themed haunted walking tour to LA and industry professionals. Enter our BEST HAUNTED NEO-NOIR SHORT STORY competition and be a part of this venture!
TWO NEW DISTRIBUTORS:
We are pleased to announce IPitch.TV as a major distributor of our winning films! This is in ADDITION to SMG Film Distribution AND three other award-winning major distributors of online / hotel/cruise short films.
We are pleased to announce we have added TWO new categories to our festival:
1.BEYOND L.A. NEO NOIR / SCI FI / FANTASY / ANIMATION NEO NOIR FILMS
2.BEYOND L.A. NEO NOIR / SCI FI / FANTASY / ANIMATION NEO NOIR SCRIPTS
See the category descriptions below for details!
We are only accepting 5 more VIP entries in the writing and film categories. So if you would like VIP privileges (three days 72 hours screening of films regardless of award placement, while everyone else has only one public screening, a video interview highlighted on our website, extensive consultation for your neo-noir project, and more) you need to secure your spot as soon as possible. Don't wait until it's too late.
LANNEFF is proud to announce that its most recent festival received ALL FIVE STAR reviews in the dozens! See our most recent LENGTHY reviews for yourself on LANNEFF.COM
LANNEFF was also ranked one of THE TOP 100 BEST REVIEWED FESTIVALS out of THOUSANDS of festivals by FilmFreeway!
L.A. NEO NOIR NEWS ALERT: NEW TOP FIVE IMPORTANT REASONS TO ENTER THIS FESTIVAL:
1. THIS IS THE BEST PLACE FOR YOUR SCRIPT: This year, Carey Westbrook himself will be a part of this year's script consultation team. Carey Westbrook has served as a script consultant for Derek Cianfrance, TWO TIME Academy Award winner, and George Tillman Jr., an Academy Award nominee. See Westbrook working with Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling on improvised dialogue on lanneff.com Westbrook's radio show was also featured in FOUR other film festivals in 2021. Enter your script in The V.I.P. Neo-Noir Writing category and Carey Westbrook will personally consult with YOU!
2. THIS IS THE BEST PLACE FOR YOUR FILM: THREE prominent film distribution companies will be partnering with our festival this year to offer distribution contracts to our film winners and runner-ups. We have secured distribution deals for dozens of filmmakers through the years and we expect to secure the most we've ever secured THIS YEAR!
3. THIS IS THE BEST PLACE FOR YOU: Our 2019 audience was over 200 people in a sold-out crowd at L.A.'s Downtown Independent Theater. This year's online festival has OVER ONE THOUSAND artists, producers, and distribution entities who have expressed interest in this year's online festival: that's FIVE TIMES more eyes on your work than three years ago.
4. WE MAKE YOUR VISION GO VIRAL: Carey Westbrook and his top-notch L.A. Neo Noir associates have co-produced numerous webisode series, including the highly successful RATE MY WEEKNIGHT and two radio shows that appeared in FOUR film festivals in 2021. Enter the V.I.P. Neo-Noir Writing category this year and we may fully produce your writing into a webisode series too!
5. EVERY screenplay submission that is a screenplay is eligible for an animated trailer. Visit lanneff.com/entertainment to see the trailers we have produced. If your work is a screenplay, short story, or novel we can make it a trailer / comic book / or webisode series episode in the V.I.P. Neo-Noir Writing category. No other festival IN THE ENTIRE WORLD offers these options. WE DO!!
Due to ongoing safety issues and crowd restraints, LANNEFF has decided to hold this year's festival online. We have secured the premiere technological apparatus and we're more ready than ever to produce the best film festival online. That being said...
CONGRATULATIONS TO US FOR BEING A TOP 100 BEST-REVIEWED FESTIVAL OUT OF OVER 10,000 FESTIVALS! WE ARE NOT GREAT BECAUSE WE SAY WE ARE. WE ARE GREAT BECAUSE YOU, NEO-NOIR CREATORS AND FANS, SAY WE ARE, AND YOU'RE QUITE WELCOME! QUITE WELCOME INDEED!
"DOWN THESE MEAN STREETS A MAN MUST GO...WHO IS NEITHER TARNISHED NOR AFRAID." - RAYMOND CHANDLER
It has been hailed by L.A. Weekly as the festival with "THE WORLD'S SEXIEST DARKEST CRIME SHORT FILMS." January (JaNOIRary) Friday, January 30th to Sunday, February 1st, lanneff.com will be screening THE 2026 L.A. NEO NOIR, NOVEL, FILM, AND SCRIPT FESTIVAL 12 (LANNEFF)!
This festival is brought to you by Carey Westbrook and Associates, whose students include TWO TIME Academy Award winner, Derek Cianfrance, and Academy Award nominee George Tillman Jr. Westbrook has also worked with numerous Academy Award-nominated actors, including Ryan Gosling, Joaquin Phoenix, and Michelle Williams.
This year's festival once again features our favorite sponsor: SMG Films, the premiere online / airline distributor of neo-noir full-length and short films, as well as a launching pad for the world's best neo noir actors, actresses, and screenwriters. SMG is once again interested in our select group of winners from this year's festival and, based on our recommendations, they will be approaching that select few with online distribution opportunities!
We have also added TWO more distribution companies to our roster of interested purchasers. When you win a LANNEFF award, we will be sure to introduce them to you!
Lanneff.com has produced an exciting webisode series (see the award winning RATE MY WEEKNIGHT series on lanneff.com), and we have worked with past winners on a variety of projects. See works featuring best Femme Fatale winners, Miss Russian L.A. Katherine Pegova and Tracy Ann Chapel coming soon.
These two amazing starlets were discovered in our past festivals, and with many PAID leading roles still available in our series, it is our hope that we will bring to the neo-noir world even more great femme fatales and handsome P.I.'s, that is, actors and actresses like YOU!!
See one of many short webisode series co-produced by Westbrook on Facebook right now, like the hit webisode game show RATE MY WEEKNIGHT at lanneff.com:
L.A. Neo Noir also boasts the same old people coming back for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th time! How is that a good thing? L.A. Neo Noir has the highest number of return screenwriters, more than any other festival because most of our festival screenwriters come back the very next year with fully produced films based on their previously recognized screenplays. Amazing screenwriters, like Diana Lee Woody and David J. Schroeder, have returned with their neo-noir masterpiece fully produced films featuring well-known stars. See Woody's "A Menacing Proposal" and Schroeder's "This Modern Man is Beat." Look at the exhaustively long list of previous winners on lanneff.com to see the point being made here: L.A. Neo Noir Festival is so good you have to go back, Jack, and do it again and again...AND AGAIN!!
We have exciting neo-noir networking events in place that have reaped benefits for ALL of our past participants. We did the Downtown L.A. Neo Noir premiere of Robin Wright's directorial debut, THE DARK OF NIGHT at L.A.'s very own Downtown Independent Theater. We have many guests you'll recognize from film and TV this year, but the most important celebrity of this upcoming Thanksgiving weekend will be YOU.
Our objective: celebrate, showcase, AND sell the work of the greatest independent unknown neo-noir filmmakers and writers from L.A. and around the world. We have done this successfully TWELVE times. This thirteenth time plus YOU equals NEO-NOIR JANOIRARY MAGIC!
Join us online in the comfort and safety of your own home. Selected winners enjoy a $100 cash prize, a distribution deal, a webisode series deal, and many other prizes. So get that amazing neo-noir work-ready. Get your entry fee, get your best neo-noir screenplay, film, novel, short story, monologue, and get ready to make 2026 the best year of neo-noir ever. If you love L.A. neo-noir, your work MUST be represented here, and you MUST be ready for your close-up with the Mr. DeMille of L.A. neo-noir greatness, L.A. NEO NOIR NOVEL, FILM, & SCRIPT FESTIVAL 12!
Note: There are absolutely no fee waivers of any kind for any reason available for this festival. If your entire film production team cannot raise $35 to enter this festival, we recommend you participate in the plethora of free festivals already offered here in FilmFreeway. You should enter them in addition to this festival. Why not? They're free! We're not free, nor do we have any waivers...of any kind...for any reason. Best Wishes!
$100 for Best Film, $100 for Best Script, a paid webisode series offer for the best femme fatale and neo-noir actor, and many other prizes. Each winner will have their film in its entirety or excerpts, if so desired, live streamed on a private link where our entire neo-noir roster of neo-noir producers, in the hundreds, can see their masterpiece. Winners selected by Westbrook and his staff will receive a distribution offer from one of our three distribution partnerships, including SMG Films. In the event of a tie, tie winners agree to split prizes and awards. EVERY writing submission may also purchase a trailer based on a scene from their story. The top five winning writing submissions, and official selections, will be featured on the L.A. Neo Noir website, live-streamed from Hollywood California.
