L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival

The L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival (LACS) is an annual film festival held in the spring in Los Angeles, California. LACS programs short films exclusively in the comedy genre, and is the largest festival of its kind in the United States. During the four-day event, between 60-90 comedy short films from around the world are screened at the festival's main venue in Downtown Los Angeles, with additional industry panels and parties taking place at various locations around the city. The festival culminates on the final night with a red carpet awards ceremony, where winning filmmakers and screenwriters are honored and the "Commie" award is presented to a comedy industry notable for career achievement and "excelling in achieving outstanding comedical achievements in the field of comedy excellence."
The festival mission states that LACS is "dedicated to introducing the newest and hottest comedic talent to the industry, and helping them make the connections they need to take their careers to the next level." Each year, a selection of films from the festival is screened at multiple venues around the country as part of the L.A. Comedy Shorts Best-of-Fest Tour.
History.
L.A. Comedy Shorts was founded in 2009 by Gary Anthony Williams of "Boston Legal", along with Festival Director Jeannie Roshar and Festival Producer Ryan Higman. The inaugural festival took place March 5–8, 2009 at The Downtown Independent Theater in Los Angeles, and was sponsored by Funny Or Die, Atom.com and The Onion. Participating celebrities included Mark Hamill, Aisha Tyler, Sean Astin, and awards show host Adam Carolla.
In 2011, LACS added a prize for comedy short student films.
Currently not in operation.
L.A. Comedy Scripts.
LACS also hosts the L.A. Comedy Scripts Screenplay Competition, which judges feature-length and short comedy screenplays from around the world. L.A. Comedy Scripts finalists and winners are honored at the LACS awards event.
For the 2010 festival, L.A. Comedy Scripts added the half-hour comedy TV pilots category.