What is the real character of our nation's second largest city? Several AFI FEST filmmakers dare to answer this question with a rich tapestry of films that reveals Los Angeles and its characters to be charming, complex, romantic, creative, hard working and often times heartbreaking.

"Los Angeles is so overwhelming, so sprawling, so strange, but also, so beautiful and free all at once, it's inspiring." - Doug Prey, director of BIG RIG

THE MIDDLE EAST
Nov. 3 In the Daily News

With films like Andreas Mol Dalsgaard's bodybuilding documentary AFGHAN MUSCLES and Nina Davenport's story of a young Iraqi student, OPERATION FILMMAKER, these films have a perspective on the Middle East different than what's on the TV news.

"When I saw the confl ict developing between the Iraqi intern and the American producers, I realized the story would, in fact, be dramatic, and relevant, so I stuck with it," says Davenport.

This contingent of films also includes many fi rst- and second-time female filmmakers: Israeli husband-and-wife team Etgar Keret and Shira Gefen bring JELLYFISH (Meduzot), a bleak dream of life in Tel Aviv, while CARAMEL, a fi rst-time feature by Lebanese director-actor Nadine Labaki, examines the lives of three women who work in a beauty salon.

POLITICS
Nov. 4 In the Daily News

Be they big-budget dramas or homemade documentaries, a slew of the select films at AFI FEST examine governments, presidential campaigns, corrupt systems and the cost of freedom.

"We did want to understand ourselves how a 14-acre farm that fed 350 families for over a decade in a very poor area with so few trees and fewer food markets could possibly be destroyed. The reality of the destruction is mind boggling." - Sheila A. Laffey, director and co-producer of SOUTH CENTRAL FARM

SIMPLY SEX
Nov. 5 In the Daily News

Oh yeah...who says a film festival can't be a little naughty? From the hypersexual fun of VIVA, writer-director-star Anna Biller's note-perfect parody of '70s sexploitation films, to the lush, surreal vision of life as Japanese courtesan in SAKURAN, starring Japanese pop superstar Anna Tsuchiya, there is defi nitely something saucy in the air this year.

"I mean here I am having "sex" and this guy is talking about how his computer is 'lagging.' I think that's hilarious, but it's not like as a society we weren't having disconnected sex before Second Life." - Valerie Brewer, director of UNTITLED #2 an examination of life in cyberspace.

ENTERPRISING BOYS
Nov. 6 In the Daily News

A handful of films display boys at their enterprising, making-lemonsout- of-lemonade best.

One, director Ramin Bahrani's follow-up to his independent gem MAN PUSH CART is CHOP SHOP. He follows a disenfranchised boy who works, schemes and scams to create a better life for himself and his sister through his job at an industrial chop shop. The boy takes the lead but Bahrani sees the twosome as equals in their "us against the world" upward struggle.

"What they both have to accept in their lives is equally devastating, and both succeed in overcoming that," he says.

In NAKED, from Holland, a young man makes the best out of his fi rst trip to a nude sauna with his mother. The director, Albert Jan van Rees, makes the point that the key to overcoming a diffi cult situation is altering your own perception of it. "The boy sees things he has never seen. At the end, he only dreams about the beautiful things he has experienced in the sauna."

FAMILY MATTERS
Nov. 7 In the Daily News

Some of us love them, some of us loathe them, and most of us do both at the same time. Families, no matter how close-knit or far-fl ung, are inextricably intertwined with our identities; our families are who we are. Each of the families in the films at AFI FEST deal with unique problems, but they all share the same familial bond, so strong, so aggravating, and so inescapable.

"There's something inherently dramatic about people being stuck together and having to deal with each other," says Tamara Jenkins, whose film THE SAVAGES concerns estranged siblings thrown together when their father falls ill.

EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKERS
Nov. 8 In the Daily News

Adam Wingard's fever-dream thriller, POP SKULL, could have easily been sponsored by Tylenol PM or any number of over-thecounter medications. Wingard, the director, cinematographer and editor of the film, says his scrawny budget - a mere $2,000 - actually helped aid in the goals he originally had for the film.

"I've never had a problem doing things with little or no money," he explains.

"I find it to be an exciting challenge. You really can try anything because there's nobody looking over your shoulder, second-guessing every move. The low budget actually left us free to be artists."

TRAGI-COMEDY
Nov. 9 In the Daily News

This year, AFI FEST offers a wide range of exciting new comedies that manage to find the laughs in such seemingly depressing topics as death, sexual insecurity and family strife.

"The parts of life that people do not wish to honestly address, the quiet lies we tell ourselves about madness and death, these are the things that seem to be the most amusing." - Michael O'Connell, director of LIVING WAKE