Intrigue in the Philippines

The 11-day Los Angeles Film Festival opens tonight with a screening of “Down in the Valley,” but the first full day on Friday features an eclectic slate including films from the narrative and documentary competition fields.

Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana’s “Cavite” opens like a typical low-budget digital-video slacker drama before quickly transforming into an intimate political thriller set in the Philippines. Gamazon gives a captivating performance as Adam, an unhappy Filipino American with a job as a security guard on the San Diego waterfront, and is on-screen for nearly every shot.

Adam returns to the islands for what we eventually learn is his father’s funeral. An envelope he receives at the Manila airport contains a ringing cellphone and some grisly photos, and he soon finds himself embroiled in intrigue, kidnapping and murder. Gamazon and Dela Llana use the hardscrabble guerrilla filmmaking to their advantage in carving out a smart film that explores Adam’s hardboiled cultural rebirth as he journeys through the back alleys and dusty villages in this crisply edited suspense story. The resourceful filmmakers also manage to keep what could easily have been a gimmick -- a script in which 90% of the dialogue is phone conversations -- fresh and compelling to the end.

At the beginning of Canaan Brumley’s cinema verite “Ears, Open. Eyeballs, Click,” the tops of newly shaved Marines’ heads bounce along inside a moving bus, as the recruits await the arrival of their technical instructors -- the men who will make their lives hell in the months ahead. Brumley, a barber at Camp Pendleton, received surprising access in chronicling the raw young men’s indoctrination process.

Devoid of narration or interviews, the film distances the audience while simultaneously putting it in the same position as the recruits: not knowing what will happen next. Brumley captures the initial nervousness and anxiety of the trainees as they stumble through the gantlet of technical instructors ready to verbally rip them apart at every gaffe. The milieu evokes Thomas E. Rick’s book “Making the Corps” and the first half of Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film “Full Metal Jacket,” as the group gradually loses its gawkiness and prepares for war.

Central Europe

The Goethe-Institut’s Blockbusters series continues with the eccentric documentary “Die Mitte.” Polish filmmaker Stanislaw Mucha travels from Germany to Ukraine in search of the “true” geographical center of Europe.

No fewer than 12 places lay claim to that distinction, indicating the spot with a variety of markers ranging from rocks to full-blown monuments. Mucha is ultimately more interested in the people he encounters than locating the precise center, and that’s what makes the film work. Municipal pride is overshadowed by a general malaise and confusion about where the center lies, but the people Mucha interviews are ready to jump in and debate everything from the fall of the Soviet Union to the best way to improve television reception in Poland.

Four for Outfest

Four shorts in which apparently straight men take walks on the wild side make up Outfest Wednesday’s “Str8 Talk” compilation.

Sidney Karger’s diverting “Between 9 & 12” finds a married businessman juggling call-waiting as he attempts to utilize a gay phone sex service. In Larry Kennar’s well-acted “Spokane,” a wedding reception is the meeting place for the gay brother (Jason Waters) of the groom and one of his brother’s friends ( Kyle Bornheimer). Lots of alcohol and a trip to a strip joint lead them to a hotel where the two discover a mutual curiosity.

The best of the evening’s shorts, the Australian coming-of-age “What Grown-Ups Know,” directed by Jonathan Wald, involves a gay teen’s attempt to seduce the manager of a caravan park where he and his mother are staying.

The German film “Eddie & Bert,” about a gay man trying to get a single dance out of an unwilling straight man, was unavailable for preview.

Note: The Silent Movie Theatre celebrates Father’s Day with weekend screenings of “The Kid,” the 1921 tear-jerker starring Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan. The shows feature live musical accompaniment as well as a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest. 8 p.m. Saturday; 1, 4 and 8 p.m. Sunday. www.silentmovietheatre.com; (323) 655-2520.

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Screenings

Los Angeles Film Festival

* “Cavite”: 7:30 p.m. Friday; 9:30 p.m. Monday

* “Ears, Open. Eyeballs, Click”: 4:45 p.m. Friday; 9:45 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Laemmle’s Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood

Info: lafilmfest.com; (866) 345-6337

Blockbusters series

* “Die Mitte”: 7 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, 5750 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

Info: (323) 525-3388

Outfest Wednesdays

* “Str8 Talk”: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Info: americancinematheque.com; (323) 466-FILM