TODAY AT AFI FESTIVAL : F<i> ollowing are The Times’ recommendations for today’s schedule of the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival, with commentary by the film reviewing staff. Information: (213) 466-1767. </i> : Highly Recommended:

JURAJ JAKUBISKO TRIBUTE: “SITTING PRETTY ON A BRANCH”(Czechoslovakia: 1989; Music Hall; 7 p.m.) At war’s end, two clowns and opportunists--and a beautiful Jewish waif--roam the Czech countryside, temporarily free as birds . . . A key work for Jakubisko, an informal remake of his long-banned 1969 “Birds, Orphans and Madmen,” in which he reworked the scathing material of his young manhood--a triangle of war orphans whose liaison begins in gaiety and ends in terror--into a warm, richly comic, picaresque fantasia. In the film, joy and youth cannot last; neither can idealistic delusions. But some boundless spirit, and Jakubisko’s torrent of cinematic invention, keeps us caught in the flow of life and magic. Sheila Benson concurs: “A magical film, a return to the great ‘60s period of Czech cinema.”

“STEAL AMERICA”(United States; director Lucy Phillips; AFI Warner; 6:45 p.m.) Story, structure and monochrome photography suggest Jim Jarmusch. But the mood and style are pure new Wave: French and Czech. Set in San Francisco, it’s about a quadrangle of rootless, sexually sportive foreigners: kids who treat the country like a video arcade, popping from game to game, slipping in and out of each other’s beds and lives. The budget is low, but the talent is high. Ingenuity, wit, beauty and weird exhilaration at life’s impermanence pop out of nearly every scene. Director/writer Phillips and co-writer/cinematographer Glen Scantlebury are two major discoveries of AFIFEST 91.

Others: “The Guardian Angel” (Music Hall; 9 p.m.), unscreened, is the latest from Sweden’s brilliant Suzanne Osten. Its subject: the symbiotic relationship between a radical assassin and his political target. “The Returning” (AFI Warner; 8:45 p.m.) is a highly charged, atmospheric but over-reaching New Zealand thriller, about financial chicanery, ghosts and love. “The Rebuilding of Mascot Flats” and “Takeover” (Monica; 9 p.m.): two documentaries on the efforts of the homeless to fight back. Good, idealistic . . . worth rooting for.