In Beverly Hills, a break from shopping

THE Beverly Hills Film Festival runs through Sunday, offering international films dealing with the effects of war as well as a variety of comedies and dramas.

Brazilian director Jose Joffily’s thriller “Achados e Perdidos” (Lost and Found), based on a novel by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza, is bathed in the neon noir of Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana. A retired chief of police, Vieira (Antonio Fagundes), awakens to learn that his prostitute girlfriend, Magali (Zeze Polessa), has been murdered and he is the prime suspect. Vieira blacked out and cannot remember anything about the previous night, casting doubt in his own mind as to what happened.

Into his life comes Magali’s protege, the younger Flor (Juliana Knust), who seems to have an eerily certain faith in Vieira’s innocence. Her youthful optimism invigorates the 60-year-old ex-cop, but their happiness is clouded by the reemergence of dark events from his past.

Two politically tinged documentaries focus on activist women around the world and a Los Angeles theater group composed of homeless people. “The Shape of Water,” narrated by Susan Sarandon, profiles five women in Senegal, Brazil, India and Jerusalem who fight against oppressive political, cultural and economic practices. Director Kum-Kum Bhavani chronicles the self-empowerment of Third World women as they strive to change global and local policies.

“The Real Deal,” written by John Malpede and directed by Tom Jones, utilizes a one-man performance by Malpede and interviews to detail the 20-year history of the Los Angeles Poverty Department. The LAPD transforms the experiences of the skid row community into performance, establishing a forum for social action and development. Among those interviewed is theater director Peter Sellars.

The third part of a Swedish television documentary series, “Assyriska: A National Team Without a Nation” depicts the struggles of an itinerant soccer squad and the effect its success has on global attitudes. When Assyriska, an immigrant team formed in 1974 and based in Sodertalje, ascended to Sweden’s National Premier League, the international attention it garnered brought notice to the plight of the displaced Assyrian people, without a home since World War I.

Panel discussions include “How to Create Artful Movies on Budget -- The Effects of New Technology on Cinematography” at noon Saturday in the Clarity Theater courtyard. Presented by the American Society of Cinematographers, it features such distinguished directors of photography as Allen Daviau, Nancy Schreiber, Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond.

The writer’s art

The American Cinematheque’s eighth annual Festival of Film Noir begins Friday and continues through April 16 at the Egyptian and April 13 to 16 at the Aero in Santa Monica. One of the filmmakers spotlighted is writer A.I. Bezzerides, noted for his realistic portrayals of the working class.

Fay Efrosini Lellios’ documentary “The Long Haul of A.I. Bezzerides” focuses on the writer’s dedication to his craft and his felicity at creating realistic scenarios. He entered motion pictures when his novel “The Long Haul” became the Raoul Walsh trucker saga “They Drive by Night,” and his most celebrated screenplay may be the adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s “Kiss Me Deadly,” directed by Robert Aldrich. The hourlong documentary consists of interviews with the 97-year-old Bezzerides, as well as authors Barry Gifford and Spillane and director Jules Dassin. A writer’s writer, Lellios’ subject comments on the work ethic instilled by his immigrant parents, his friendship with William Faulkner -- whose novels Bezzerides credits with inspiring him -- and his marriage to fellow screenwriter Silvia Richards.

On the same bill is the 1949 thriller “Thieves’ Highway,” which Bezzerides adapted from his novel “Thieves’ Market.” Directed by Dassin, the film in some ways echoes the writer’s relationship to his own trucker father and celebrates the proletariat themes that run through Bezzerides’ work. Richard Conte stars as the son of a wronged immigrant trucker who seeks revenge on the fruit market racketeer responsible. The cast includes Lee J. Cobb and Valentina Cortese.

Richards scripted the 1952 melodrama “Ruby Gentry,” screening with “Beyond the Forest” on a King Vidor double bill. The former stars Jennifer Jones as a curvaceous working-class girl who marries a rich man (Karl Malden) to gall her true love (Charlton Heston), the cocky blueblood who forsook her.

France to L.A.

City of Lights, City of Angels, a week of French film premieres in L.A., continues through Sunday with an eclectic mix. The enchanting Carole Bouquet stars as a social activist attorney with remodeling problems in Brigitte Rouan’s frenetic comedy “Housewarming” (“Travaux, on sait quand ca commence ... “). She enlists a grateful client, an architect, to make over her apartment with expected “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” results. The parade of immigrant laborers, the persistent amorous pursuit by another client and a surprise cameo provide a steady supply of stylish silliness.

“Papa” stars Alain Chabat as a doctor on a road trip with his young son (Martin Combes). As the pair hits rest stops and hotels, the doctor seems overly intent on amusing the boy, who rolls his eyes at the clowning. Gradually it becomes clear that the family has suffered a tragedy, and the trip is intended to heal. Written and directed by Maurice Barthelemy, it’s a thin road drama that nevertheless packs some emotional wallop due to the credible father-son dynamic forged by Chabat and Combes.

The festival’s lone documentary is the intimate memoir “My Dad Is Into Terrorism” (“La fille du juge”), directed by William Karel and based on a book by Clemence Boulouque, whose father was a judge charged with investigating the wave of terrorism that besieged France in the 1980s. Actress Elsa Zylberstein narrates the film as it powerfully presents Boulouque as a college student in New York -- she arrived a month before the Sept. 11 attacks, which inspired her to write her story -- and through home movies, as the little girl growing up in the midst of tragedy.

*

Screenings

Beverly Hills Film Festival

* “Assyriska: A National Team Without a Nation”: 8 tonight; 3:45 p.m. Saturday

* “Achados e Perdidos” (Lost and Found): 8 p.m. Friday

* “The Shape of Water” and “The Real Deal”: 11:15 a.m. Saturday

Where: Clarity Theater, 100 N. Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills

Info: (310) 779-1206 or www.beverlyhillsfilmfestival.com

Festival of Film Noir

* “Ruby Gentry” and “Beyond the Forest”: 8:30 p.m. Saturday

* “The Long Haul of A.I. Bezzerides” and “Thieves’ Highway”: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Info: (323) 466-FILM, www.egyptiantheatre.com

City of Lights

* “My Dad Is Into Terrorism” (“La fille du juge”): 5:30 tonight

* “Housewarming” (“Travaux, on sait quand ca commence ... “): 7:30 tonight

* “Papa”: 12:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Directors Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd., L.A.

Info: (310) 358-2921, www.colcoa.com