Sundance 'Next Weekend' festival heads to Hollywood

The Sundance Film Festival is synonymous with parkas, snow and the mountains of Utah.

But on Thursday, the festival will head to sunny Los Angeles for its first ever "Next Weekend" Film Festival, which runs August 8 to 11.

The summer film festival will present four days of screenings, parties and artist programs celebrating independent film in the white hot center of Hollywood.

"In creating 'Next' weekend we were looking to shed our parkas and boldly celebrate this 'other side' of Hollywood — the far edge of independent filmmaking," Sundance Film Festival director John Cooper said in a statement.

The weekend will kick off with an outdoor screening of Chris Smith's cult documentary American Movie and Mark Borchardt's horror film Coven on Aug. 8.

The 10 feature films in the festival's core program include two world premieres, by Madeleine Olnek and Chadd Harbold, respectively, as well as eight Los Angeles premieres, six of which first screened at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Among the filmmakers, cast and crew expected to attend the festival and discuss their work are Gregg Araki, Allison Anders and Chris Smith.

Tickets are available at www.sundance.org/nexttickets.