Overview Indie Focus is the Los Angeles Times' preview screening series for independent, foreign and documentary films: a new release plays an L.A. theater before it opens, and a Times film writer questions the filmmakers and cast on stage afterward. Mark Olsen started it around 2012 and moderated most of the screenings the Times listed in 2024 and 2025, and over the years Robert Redford, Anne Hathaway and Daniel Radcliffe have taken questions, with Al Pacino turning up unannounced at a Danny Collins screening. It is one of three Times screening series, alongside The Envelope Live and Screen Gab Live. On site Screenings move between Los Angeles theaters: Landmark Sunset on Sunset Boulevard, The Grove, AMC Century City and The Culver Theater in Culver City all hosted in 2024 and 2025. In 2015 the home was the Sunset 5 in Hollywood, a 21-and-over house with wine and beer at the concession stand. After the credits, the writer and guests take director's chairs in front of a Times backdrop, and the Q and A is filmed and posted for readers who were not in the room. Admission is by RSVP, and screenings such as Kerouac's Road were billed as free. Audience Seats go to Times readers first. In 2015 subscribers got in free with $10 of concessions and everyone else was admitted as space allowed, and Olsen's weekly newsletter steered the same readers to screenings around the city. Talent and Influencers Saoirse Ronan came with The Outrun in October 2024, Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane with Between the Temples that August, and Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons revisited Whiplash in September 2024 in a session moderated by Matt Brennan. In July 2025 the series screened the crime thriller She Rides Shotgun. Mia Hansen-Løve brought Eden with its star Félix de Givry. Brand presence Each screening carries a sponsor, usually the film's distributor: Sony Pictures Classics backed The Outrun, Whiplash and Between the Temples, Lionsgate backed She Rides Shotgun and Freestyle backed Kerouac's Road. The sponsor's name runs on the event listing and RSVP page, and the filmed Q and A lives on latimes.com and the Times' YouTube channel after the night.