Things to Do in L.A. This Week: July 29-August 4

‘Knock Down the House’ Documentary Screening

Monday, July 29, 2019 / 6:30-9 p.m. / West Hollywood City Council Chambers

The National Women’s Political Caucus LA Westside partnered up with the City of West Hollywood Women’s Advisory Board, the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project L.A. County Action Fund and Hollywood NOW to host a screening of Rachel Lears’ documentary “Knock Down the House.”

The film – which won the Sundance Festival Favorite Award – trails Cori Bush, Amy Vilela, Paula Jean Swearengin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during their runs for office, revealing what it takes to run a grassroots campaign and to stand up for democracy. A panel discussion will follow the screening.

Attendance is free / More Information

She LA Summer Theater Festival Presents ‘To Each His Own’

Tuesday, July 30, 2019 / 7:30-10 p.m. / Zephyr Theatre

The She LA Summer Theater Festival showcases new full-length plays and musicals by women writers. This year’s festival kicks off with “To Each His Own” by Nakisa Aschtiani, a German-born Iranian playwright based in California. Directed by Ani Marderosian and starring Roxy Shabestari, Ata Scanlan and David Russell, the story takes place a few months after 9/11. Shabestari plays a caregiver that moves to NYC assigned to live with a blind elderly Iranian man. She notices suspicious letters and graffiti aimed at her patient and sets about investigating with a lawyer she befriends. Things get more mysterious the deeper they dig.

Tickets: $20 / More Information

Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival Opening Night + Gala

Wednesday, July 31, 2019 / 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. / TCL Chinese Theatre

The Latino Film Institute’s premiere film festival will showcase 15 features, 10 directed by women, plus 17 shorts and other episodic content and special events from July 31 through August 4. The festival begins with a screening of the Sundance award-winning film, “The Infiltrators,” by Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera. Mixing documentary and narrative styles, the story follows a real-life rag-tag group of undocumented youth that deliberately get themselves detained at the border in order to expose the machinations of a for-profit immigrant detention center.

While the film’s topic is upsetting, it’s also an extremely important one. Attendees can blow off steam after the screening at the opening night gala at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel over some drinks and salsa and cumbia music provided by La Mera Candelaria and DJ Sizzle Fantastic.

Tickets: $150 / More Information

REDCAT’s New Original Works Festival

Thursday, August 1, 2019 / 8:30 p.m. to 12 a.m. / REDCAT

Nine new contemporary performance pieces premiere over the course of three weekends at REDCAT’s annual New Original Works Festival. The works range from dance, theater, music, multimedia and everything in between.

Check out the lineup for the second week of the festival: Paul Outlaw’s “BBC,” a solo performance inspired by Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” centers on a white, Trump-supporting, straight, cisgender woman who wakes up transformed into an African American man; a movement piece called “kim” that addresses the psycho-emotional experience of dressing and undressing, by Kate Watson-Wallace, Hprizm and Verónica Casado Hernández; and “Popular Revolt” by Alexandro Segade and Amy Ruhl, which involves using Marxist theater, motivational speeches and motion graphics to examine the chokehold of neoliberalism.

Tickets: $14-$20 / More Information

NKRIOT ‘DATA_ONE’ Album Release Party and Hologram Performance

Friday, August 2, 2019 / 10 p.m. to 12 a.m./ 233 S. Beaudry Ave.

Electronic dance music maker NKRIOT celebrates his new EP, “DATA_ONE,” with a hologram performance inside World of Light, a massive interactive art and technology exhibit currently occupying 50,000 square feet in a building downtown. It’s the perfect place for an artist so dedicated to merging technology and music that he creates his own instruments and futuristic genres.

We’re not sure what a “hologram performance” entails, but it’s a great opportunity to check out World of Light’s fully interactive visual exhibit, featuring installations utilizing projection and 360 VR mapping, fluorescent walls and surveillance cameras, among other exciting gadgetry.

Tickets: $25 / More Information

Busy P & Friends

Saturday, August 3, 2019 / 10 p.m. – 2 a.m. / 1720

Pedro “Busy P” Winter knows dance music. The French DJ, producer, artist manager and Ed Banger Records label boss got his start managing Daft Punk, and went on to champion the likes of Justice, Mr. Oizo, Cassius, Breakbot, SebastiAn and many more. If life has you wanting to dance your mind away to electro house, this party with Busy P and his as-yet-unannounced friends should do the trick.

Tickets: $17 / More Information

‘Death and the Maiden’

Sunday, August 4, 2019 / 5-7 p,m, / 110 E. 9th. St, Los Angeles, CA 90079

Not to be confused with the 1994 film starring Sigourney Weaver, or the play it was based on by Ariel Dorfman, in this case, “Death and the Maiden” refers to Franz Schubert’s “String Quartet No. 14 in D minor.” Considered one of the pillars of chamber music, the American Contemporary Ballet will premiere a new ballet set to this dark, haunting piece that Schubert wrote in 1824 after finding out he was dying.

An artist reception with live music follows the performance.

Tickets: $45-$105 / Performances at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. / More Information