The ring of truth

IT’S not unusual for documentaries to dominate a festival. And this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival is no exception, with a strong group of nonfiction works largely connected by a search for justice and redemption.

Below are 10 recommended films from those available for preview, in the order they screen. Beyond this list, the International Showcase generally includes unheralded gems, and the Summer Preview series peeks at coming films that mostly have already survived the gantlet of festivals to secure distribution. The Guilty Pleasures and Dark Wave sidebar series also offer frivolity and frights.

‘Mario’s Story’

Mario Rocha -- convicted of murder and attempted murder and sentenced to double life terms in prison -- appears to have gotten a raw deal that has cost him 10 years of his life. Jeff Werner and Susan Koch’s extraordinary documentary chronicles the young man’s fight for freedom. Rocha’s inner strength and resilience through adversity are a marvel. Sincere and articulate, he has used writing as a powerful release. As much as the film uplifts, it also anguishes as the difficult appeal process plays out.

* 10:30 a.m. Friday, Mann National; 7 p.m. Monday, Landmark Regent; 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Italian Cultural Institute

‘Time to Leave’

A surprisingly life-affirming tale, Francois Ozon’s drama is an intimate treatment of mortality that involves a gradual physical and emotional evolution rather than a whiplash, Hollywood-style transformation. Melvil Poupaud plays Romain, a successful gay fashion photographer who learns he has terminal cancer. Choosing to deal with the prognosis in his own way, Romain sets out on a road trip to visit his grandmother (a wonderfully bohemian Jeanne Moreau). On the journey, he meets a waitress in a roadside cafe (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) with whom he forms a bond.

* 7 p.m. Friday, Majestic Crest

‘Beyond Conviction’

Confronting one’s accuser purportedly dates back to Roman times, but the right of a victim or survivor to confront his or her attacker is a more recent concept. This straightforward, fly-on-the-wall documentary by Rachel Libert examines three cases in a nascent Pennsylvania program that brings together injured parties and felons in the name of restorative justice. Addressing the process of healing, the film focuses on the intense face-to-face meetings as victims and perpetrators work through forgiveness and understanding in the hope of gaining closure.

* 7:15 p.m. Friday, Landmark Regent; 4:30 p.m. Monday, Italian Cultural Institute

‘Stranded’

This bright Australian import packs more into 52 minutes than most dramas do at twice the length. With large eyes threatening to be consumed by her thick chestnut bangs, gifted Emma Lung stars as Claudia, a 17-year-old who yearns to be free of the claustrophobic home she shares with her glum dad, sarcastic younger sister, an assortment of exotic birds and the weight of her mum’s recent suicide. Written by Kathleen O’Brien and directed by Stuart McDonald, the movie is a tragicomic maelstrom of teenage angst.

* 5:45 p.m. Saturday, Landmark Regent; 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Landmark Regent

‘Deliver Us From Evil’

The concept of the infallibility of priests receives a stinging critique in writer-director Amy Berg’s understandably angry documentary, the story of a remorseless pedophile Catholic priest. A deceptive figure -- a Barry Fitzgerald facade with a Peter Lorre lurking beneath -- Oliver O’Grady served as a priest in Central California for nearly 20 years, quietly terrorizing the region before being arrested. Focusing on a handful of O’Grady’s victims, now adults, the film assays the suffering of their families while it cogently builds an argument implicating the complicity of Cardinal Roger Mahony, once O’Grady’s bishop, in covering up the crimes.

* 7 p.m. Saturday, Majestic Crest; 4:15 p.m. Monday, Landmark Regent

‘Inheritance’

Anyone who has seen “Schindler’s List” is familiar with Amon Goeth through Ralph Fiennes’ unsettling portrayal of the murderous concentration camp commandant. Imagine the pain being the daughter of such a man. Director James Moll, an Oscar winner for “The Last Days,” profiles Goeth’s daughter Monika Hertwig in this moving documentary. Monika -- now a grandmother whose face appears to be permanently marked with sadness -- slowly learned the truth about her father as she grew up, insisting to herself that she was not him. Moll builds the film around Monika’s sorrowful meeting with Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, a survivor of Goeth’s wrath.

* 2:15 p.m. Sunday, Majestic Crest; 5 p.m. Tuesday, Italian Cultural Institute; 7:30 p.m. June 29, Laemmle’s Sunset 5

‘Jonestown: The Life and

Death of Peoples Temple’

This fascinating documentary recounts the church and the events that led to the murder/suicide of more than 900 followers in Guyana in 1978, many through cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Interviews with former church members reveal the seductive appeal of the social justice-based ministry and its charismatic preacher, Jim Jones. Utilizing plentiful archival footage (some previously unseen), director Stanley Nelson tracks Jones’ migration from Indiana to California, the growth of the church as he preached racial equality and Christian virtues, and its relocation to the jungles of South America.

* 7:15 p.m. Monday, Majestic Crest; 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Laemmle’s Sunset 5

‘Swedish Auto’

Lukas Haas plays Carter, a lonely mechanic whose apartment is filled with maps and globes, in writer-director Derek Sieg’s sweetly forlorn drama. Fixing Saabs and Volvos by day, the shy Carter wanders the streets of Charlottesville, Va., by night, indulging a voyeuristic crush on a concert violinist. He’s saved from full-blown stalking when Darla (January Jones), the quiet, pretty blond who works the local lunch counter, takes an interest in him. An amicably paced melodrama bursting with metaphors, the film possesses the same kind of old-fashioned charm as the 1967 Volvo 123 GT that Carter refurbishes.

* 7:15 p.m. Tuesday, Majestic Crest; 4:30 p.m. June 29, Landmark Regent; 9:45 p.m. July 1, Laemmle’s Sunset 5

‘Troubled Water’

There’s no Simon & Garfunkel on the soundtrack of this frank documentary, which details the short-lived existence of the Dugit settlement on the northern Gaza Strip coast. The seemingly idyllic outpost, established in 1990 and patterned after a Greek fishing village, lasted 15 years before its 18 families were forcibly evacuated. Directed by Gil Karni, the film shows that the brief utopia in which Palestinians and Israelis fished side by side would be no bridge to a greater peace.

* 7 p.m. Wednesday, James Bridges Thea-

ter; 5 p.m. July 2, Italian Cultural Institute

‘This Film Is Not Yet Rated’

If Kirby Dick hadn’t caused consternation within the Motion Picture Assn. of America before, he sure did once his flame of a

documentary played Sundance in January. Dick acidly takes on the organization’s

oft-questioned rating system, its high-profile former president Jack Valenti and engages private investigators to out the members

of the highly secretive ratings board. Filmmakers including Kimberly Peirce (“Boys Don’t Cry”), Matt Stone (“Team America: World Police”), Atom Egoyan (“Where

the Truth Lies”) and Wayne Kramer

(“The Cooler”) share their adventures in NC-17 land.

* 7 p.m. June 29, Mann Festival