L.A. Film Festival: 'Beasts of the Southern Wild' screens tonight After wowing audiences at the Sundance Film Festival in January and Cannes in May, "Beasts of the Southern Wild" will have its first Southern California screening tonight at the L.A. Film Festival. "Beasts," as much a love letter to a dying part of Louisiana culture - the typically impoverished families living in quickly disappearing land near the state's southern tip - as a magically realistic look at a young daughter's fierce love for her dying father,will be released in theaters by Fox Searchlight on June 27. So if you don't have a ticket to tonight's gala, there's not long to wait. After winning the grand jury prize and a cinematography honor at Sundance, "Beasts" collected two more awards at Cannes: best first feature and a critics' prize. Sunday's Calendar section features an on-location interview with director Benh Zeitlin about the movie, his first feature film. CHEAT SHEET: Los Angeles Film Festival 2012 LA Film Festival: William Friedkin's 'ferocious sensibility' LA Film Festival spotlights human stories from Latin America John Horn Photo: Dwight Henry as "Wink" and Quvenzhane Wallis as "Hushpuppy" on the set of the movie "Beasts of the Southern Wild." Credit: Fox Searchlight.