Country-fair air, blue-ribbon films

Racing pigs. Rats in love. Oh, yes, and a batch of short films. They all took center stage, sort of, Saturday as the Los Angeles Film Festival began winding down on its final weekend.

At the Majestic Crest theater in Westwood, a computer-animated film about two rats who fall in love captivated the midafternoon audience. It was called “One Rat Short,” or as writer-director Alex Weil put it, “animation noir.”

The film begins in the grime and grit of the New York City subway system, where a rat gives chase to a nearly empty Cheetos bag drifting in the wind and accidentally stumbles into a futuristic laboratory housing dozens of white rats undergoing scientific experiments. The street rat is attracted to one of the lab rats, but their budding love is doomed before they can escape.

“I think it has to do with self-image and how one sees oneself, and then one sees something that is more beautiful and someone of desire and gets distracted by other things,” Weil said after the screening. “It’s about how difficult it is to connect and how everybody wants to connect.”

Cedar Sherbert was also on hand at the Crest on Saturday to discuss his short film “Gesture Down (I Don’t Sing),” which he adapted from the poem “Gesture Down to Guatemala” by James Welch. It tells about a Native American man who reclaims his heritage. Sherbert said the film, shot on the Kumeyaay reservation about an hour southeast of Ensenada, was a personally driven project. His mother is native Kumeyaay.

“It’s really about my relationship with that tribe, with that village and with those people. I’ve been going there since I was a little boy. One of the first times I went there was actually to bury my grandfather. So that place means a lot to me,” Sherbert said. “It really came from a very personal place within the context of those people and who am I within the context of their culture. I’m from there, but I’m not from there.”

Among the other shorts screening Saturday afternoon were “Diet Leibovich” by Israeli filmmaker Avishag Leibovich, who humorously chronicles her family’s dieting efforts; “Gnome” by Jenny Bicks, a bittersweet comedy about a suburban housewife who accepts a ride with a trio of inner-city female impersonators; and, “Side Walls” by Gustavo Taretto, a touching story set in the high-rises of Buenos Aires about a young man and young woman who each has difficulty meeting the person of their dreams.

Now, back to the pigs

Broxton Avenue, christened “Popcorn Alley,” had one parking lot transformed into a makeshift county fair.

Children, who were seated on bales of hay ringing the racetrack, went hog wild when the Westwood Pig Race was staged. Spot, Betty, Susie and Charlie -- 250- to 300-pound Yorkshire pigs -- didn’t seem like they wanted to run at first, but put food in front of their snouts and look at them bolt from the pen. They made a mad dash toward the trainers. Charlie was the first to plunge into his victory meal and was named the official winner.

Of course, the pigs were there for a reason: They were hyping Paramount Pictures’ year-end family movie, “Charlotte’s Web.” In fact, the parking lot for the pig race was splattered with advertising not only for that film but also for Paramount’s animated film “Barnyard,” which debuts Aug. 4.

Tamara Andrews, a trainer for Gentle Jungle in Lebec, which trains animals for movies and TV, said these four porkers were “studio pigs.” And although pigs aren’t allowed to have SAG cards, they learn how to follow directions, much like actors.

“We train them with food,” Andrews said. “We teach them to sit, lie down, to look in different directions. They don’t make residuals. Their reward is a job well done and a good feeding at night.”