So many movies, so little time: What not to miss at AFI Fest

LIKE strip malls and Lindsay Lohan scandals, film festivals have a way of cropping up in this town. One day, there’s an empty lot, the next a red carpet with Kevin Spacey waxing nostalgic about an indie he and some friends shot in his beach house.

But the 21st installment of AFI Fest, with 97 features, 51 shorts and eight video artworks from 37 countries, deserves more attention than most. With new artistic director Rose Kuo at the helm, the festival has bolstered its intelligence factor with panel discussions and salons, in addition to the usual star tributes.

Opening tonight with Robert Redford’s “Lions for Lambs,” the festival (which is being presented by the Los Angeles Times) is stacked with U.S., international and Cannes-tested fare, as well as more experimental films from AFI’s Digital Content Lab.

“Our timing at the end of the year allows us to weigh in on what’s going on with film and project ahead,” said AFI spokesman John Wildman. “We want to be an active participant in the film dialogue for all types of films.”

So that’s all nice and good -- who doesn’t want more championing, more reflecting, more dialogue? But it still comes down to the kiss kiss bang bang. Here’s our take on what you need to see:

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‘PERSEPOLIS’

Marjane Satrapi wrote and starkly illustrated four deceptively simple graphic novels about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, garnering comparisons with the golden rodent of graphic novels, Art Spiegelman’s “Maus.” She could’ve spent the rest of her Parisian days congratulating herself with chocolate croissants, but instead she joined director Vincent Paronnaud to create the animated film featuring the voices of real-life mother-daughter Catherine Deneuve and Chiara Mastroianni. The critics have hailed it as “brilliant,” “enthralling” and “an unqualified triumph.” In other words, if you don’t see it, you’re a dweeb.

7 p.m. Nov. 10, part of a Catherine Deneuve tribute

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‘THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY’

One day, Jean-Dominique Bauby was an articulate sophisticate -- the editor of French Elle, ooh la la -- and a few comatose weeks later, he awoke as a stroke victim lying in bed paralyzed, able to communicate only through blinking his left eye. “Diving Bell,” starring Mathieu Amalric, is a tribute to what kept Bauby inspired: imagination and memory. Julian Schnabel -- director of “Before Night Falls” and “Basquiat,” not to mention the former silk-robed lion of the ‘80s art world -- won the best director prize at Cannes for this, his latest film charting the creative soul’s metaphysical challenges.

7 p.m. next Thu., 4 p.m. Nov. 11

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‘THE HONEYDRIPPER’

John Sayles understands the complexities and shifting identity of the South like few other directors. With “Sunshine State,” he captured its particular contemporary relationship with gentrification. In his latest, Sayles transports his stellar cast to a juke joint in ‘50s rural Alabama run by Danny Glover, who pulls a “Big Night”-like stunt in an effort to save his ailing club. Expect Sayles’ trademark understated intelligence with blasts of blues and smoke.

4 p.m. Sun., noon Tue.

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‘DEFICIT’

Who could focus on all the subtle class issues in “Y Tu Mama Tambien” when Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal were swapping Tecate-tinged spit in a hut? No one, so thank goodness Bernal is back in front of and behind the camera in this examination of the bourgeois versus the pill-popping hippie set at a house party near Mexico City.

7 p.m. Sun., 1:30 p.m. Wed.

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‘THE LAST MISTRESS’

Catherine Breillat is a gutsy French director who loves nothing better than to turn a film on its ear with feminist implications. In “The Last Mistress,” she turns her attention to post-Napoleon France with Asia Argento as a tempestuous Spanish mistress. This is the same territory covered in Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” but the difference is Breillat takes off her powder-pink Dior gloves.

3 p.m. Sat., 1 p.m. Sun.

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ALSO CHECK OUT

“Caramel,” the “Steel Magnolias” of Lebanon (10 p.m. Fri., 3:45 p.m. Sat.); Adam Wingard’s frenetic concoction “Pop Skull” (11 p.m. Fri., 3:45 p.m. Sun.); “The Counterfeiters,” set in Nazi Germany (9 p.m. Nov. 10, 3 p.m. Nov. 11); and Israeli favorite “The Band’s Visit” (7:15 p.m. Sat., 12:30 p.m. Mon.).

-- Margaret.Wappler@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

AFI FEST

WHERE: ArcLight, 6360 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood

WHEN: Today through Nov. 11

PRICE: $11, most screenings; $7, weekday matinees; $25, opening night and tributes to Catherine Deneuve and Laura Linney

INFO: (866) 234-3378, www.afi.com