Hollywood Rolls Out Red Carpet for AFI Fest

The American Film Institute’s Los Angeles International Film Festival, which opens Thursday and runs through Oct. 31, marks its 10th anniversary by screening more than 90 features from nearly 40 countries.

Many of the screenings will take place at two locations on Hollywood Boulevard: Mann’s Chinese and the nearby Galaxy, with the rest taking place at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Creative Artists Agency.

At least 45 of the films will be presented by their makers, arriving from all over the world. LACE will host a video festival, with some video presentations at the Mark Goodson Theater on the AFI campus.

“I believe that the combination of the quality of the films that have accepted invitations to Los Angeles this year and the returning to Hollywood Boulevard, the spiritual heart of all the world’s movies, makes this the year that we finally have a festival worthy of the world’s film capital,” said Gary McVey, director of AFI festivals.

Hollywood itself will be represented in the festival only by some vintage films and tributes, and by its opening night attraction at the Chinese, Al Pacino’s “Looking for Richard.” A playful quest for the full meaning of Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” the film includes scenes from the play as staged by Pacino, who plays Richard.

In a deft stroke of programming, AFI Filmfest will present on Oct. 29 at LACMA its recently acquired 1912 “Richard III,” believed to be the earliest extant American feature-length film.

AFI Filmfest has traditionally been an invaluable showcase for international cinema and American independent films. Judging from a large selection of pictures available for preview, there will be more outstanding films on view than most people will have time to see.

The most talked-about film--and the festival’s closing night feature--most likely will be iconoclastic Danish director Lars Von Trier’s astonishing “Breaking the Waves,” in which an intensely passionate love story, set in rural Scotland, turns obsessive when tragedy strikes. Another picture sure to cause a stir is Australian filmmaker Rolf de Heer’s “Bad Boy Bubby,” in which a 38-year-old man steps out of a two-room bunker-like apartment for the first time in his life.

“Bad Boy Bubby” (Sunday at the Galaxy) is one of the festival’s most venturesome, major offerings, a boldly original and harrowing allegory of madness and sanity. Bubby (Nicholas Hope, in a breathtaking portrayal) has been terrorized by his mother into never leaving their dreary two-room apartment, where she abuses him sexually and otherwise, until his father--who never knew of his existence--turns up. What happens when Bubby finally steps outside is an imaginative, illuminating and convincing tour of modern society that progresses surprisingly from dark to light.

Gena Rowlands will present Nick Cassavetes’ “Unhook the Stars,” in which she stars and which will screen at the Chinese Oct. 22. It will be followed by a tribute to her, featuring clips and onstage guests. Similarly, Anjelica Huston will present her directorial feature debut, “Bastard Out of Carolina,” Oct. 23 at the Chinese, followed by a program in tribute to her. Candice Bergen and Vincent Malle will accept a Colbert Foundation Award in honor of the late Louis Malle preceding the screening of one of Malle’s finest films, “Lacombe, Lucien” (1974), which will screen Oct. 28 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences after a reception.

There will also be a tribute to CIBY 2000, the distinguished French production company, in the form of a panel discussion with its CEO, Jean-Francois Fonlupt. An evening with major experimental filmmaker Pat O’Neill will be held Oct. 27 at LACMA. On Oct. 26 at the Monica 4-Plex, the festival will hold its traditional all-night movie marathon.

The following are some of the best films that were available for preview:

During its opening weekend the festival will present a pair of scintillating French period pictures, virtual companions.

Leave it to the French to cast unhandsome yet charismatic Fabrice Luchini in the title role of Edouard Molinaro’s bewitching, rollicking “Beaumarchais, the Scoundrel” (Saturday at the Galaxy, Oct. 30 at the Monica 4-Plex) and then let him convincingly charm himself out of one scrape after another in an enthralling portrayal of the 18th century composer-activist-adventurer.

There could be no more appropriate companion film to “Beaumarchais” than Patrice Leconte’s equally ambitious, equally dazzling “Ridicule” (Friday at the Chinese, Sunday at the Monica 4-Plex). Set largely in 1783 Versailles, a young man (Charles Berling) becomes caught up in the vicious battle of wits in Louis XVI’s court.

Berling is dazzlingly supported by Jean Rochefort as his gallant mentor, Judith Godreche as Rochefort’s beautiful scientist daughter and Fanny Ardant as a favorite of Louis, as gorgeous as she is witty and treacherous.

Tsui Hark’s “The Chinese Feast” (Sunday at the Chinese) is not the classic comedy his “Peking Blues” is, but it’s a pretty funny crowd-pleaser as three master Hong Kong chefs engage in a cooking competition with the panache of martial artists.

Poland’s Andrzej Wajda, long established as one of the world’s great directors, has dealt with the horrors of World War II many times, yet there is a terrifying timelessness to “The Holy Week” (Sunday at the Chinese), which as the title suggests, unfolds during Easter Week. It’s the dark year of 1943, and a young Jewish woman (Beata Fundalej) is saved from the Warsaw Ghetto at the last minute by a chance encounter with her Gentile ex-fiance (Wojciech Malajkat), who takes her to his apartment in a rural suburb.

Werner Schroeter’s sublime “Love’s Debris” (Sunday at Monica 4-Plex) attempts to answer French philosopher Roland Barthes’ question, “Why and how do singers find their emotions in their voice?,” as a way of affirming passionately the redemptive power of art in the face of death. An opera director as well as an idiosyncratic New German Cinema pioneer, Schroeter persuades a number of major opera stars to come to a 13th century French abbey--a magnificent setting--to try to answer Barthes’ question and to sing an aria as well. He also visits two amazing women, Martha Modl, still performing in her 80s, and the stunning, majestic Anita Cerquetti, who reveals why she left her career at its height.

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