By JUSTINA WALFORD, Contributing Writer

Like a parakeet playing with its own reflection, nothing fascinates Hollywood more than Hollywood itself. This year, AFI FEST offers a remarkable selection of documentaries and narrative films about the people who make narrative films and documentaries.

Most of these films have a beautifully selfconscious egoism. They offer honesty about what drives the filmmaker that only someone who understands the desire to point a camera at something and record can deliver. They delve into their own worlds or the worlds of their heroes with zeal and unabashed confrontation.

To hear these filmmakers talk about their subjects is like listening to a boy talk about Superman. Mike Kaplan says, "Making NEVER APOLOGIZE: A PERSONAL VISIT WITH LINDSAY ANDERSON was as much a celebration of Lindsay Anderson as it was about Malcolm McDowell's abilities as a consummate actor and storyteller."

Consummate in his own right, Kaplan added 200 visual elements from Anderson's work and life to McDowell's own theatrical storytelling to create this film. The film is so visually rich that one feels completely immersed in Anderson and McDowell's friendship.

There is also a mission to these projects, a desire to ensure the filmmakers that have touched these directors personally are introduced to a new audience. Kent Jones, director of VAL LEWTON: MAN OF SHADOWS says he made his movie to make people aware of filmmaking pioneers that aren't household names.

"It's very different with other art forms, no doubt because their histories are much lengthier," criticizes Jones, "With painting, there's a general awareness of Cezanne, Manet, Botticelli, etc. With film, there's a top tier of perhaps 20 names. So everyone knows who Chaplin, Hitchcock, Ford and Wilder are. But, Lewton? Anthony Mann? Jacques Tourneur? Murnau? No."

"I've loved Lewton's films since I was a child. I can't remember the first one I saw - probably Cat People - but I remember the feeling: the beauty, the sadness, the unsettling quality."

And that admiration isn't relegated simply to what was put on the big screen. Jeffrey Schwarz takes the audience on an entertaining ride through the career of director, producer and master showman, William Castle in SPINE TINGLER! THE WILLIAM CASTLE STORY.

"Today, show business places the emphasis on the business, but oftentimes neglects the show," Schwarz says, "Castle didn't need a $50 million dollar marketing budget to get his audience excited about his product. Through pure showmanship and the force of his own personality, he made audiences feel they were part of something truly unique that they would remember for the rest of their lives."

Narrative films often say more than documentaries, using the power of metaphor to communicate the influence of dark classic films, like John Ford's The Searchers. Alex Cox's SEARCHERS 2.0 takes a modern setting and shows a vivid world that is a reflection of a Technicolor classic.

Musing on why filmmakers (himself included) feel compelled to address The Searchers, Cox says, "Last year was its 50th anniversary year. I saw it on a big screen in Monument Valley, like the characters in our film. The Searchers could be seen as very reactionary, or very radical. 'Scar' and the Comanches are terrible beings, but so is 'Ethan Edwards,' and ... so are the Texan homesteaders. Certainly it's the best, deepest, most troubling, performance by John Wayne."

The films in the Festival give homage to the art's cinematography, as well. Documentaries often mimic their subjects' style, as seen best in WELCOME TO NOLLYWOOD, but also in blackANDwhite's LYNCH and PIERRE RISSIENT: MAN OF CINEMA.

WELCOME TO NOLLYWOOD speaks about the Hollywood on the other side of the globe. Jamie Meltzer follows Nigeria's biggest directors and the guerilla-style production of their epic films. The style of the doc is amazingly like the world of Nollywood, bravado of the lens and energized score. Indie filmmakers of America will relate most to the Nigerian filmmakers, as the world of Nollywood is full of frantic DIY survival and insanity.

From classic filmmakers to the comedy trail, Michael Addis explores the other side of the Hollywood world: critics and their cruel cousins - hecklers. In HECKLER, Addis shows how mean-spirited audience members affect comedians and how comedians react. Bluntly, it's performers on the edge and the people who take them there by force. Sometimes the standups respond impressively well with clever comebacks, but other times, it can end in uncomfortable audience titter or even violence, making this a wild ride of a film.

"I kept alternating between entertainment and enlightenment," says Addis, "When I think of the funniest movies I've ever seen, two of them were essentially non-fiction (American Movie and Jackass)." And Addis succeeds in putting himself in the same genre.