Last year I had the pleasure of covering AFI Fest in Los Angeles and got the chance to see some of the best films of the year, including the Nicole Kidman drama Rabbit Hole (which earned the leading lady a Best Actress nomination at the Oscars), Made In Dagenham, and The Fighter (which ended up being nominated for seven Academy Awards and won two). The festival has long had a solid lineup of films, and it was announced last month that this year's opening movie will be Clint Eastwood's newest, J. Edgar. Now the full lineup of galas and special screenings has been announced and this may very well be one of the AFI's strongest festivals ever.
AFI FEST 2011 presented by Audi has issued a press release with the full list of titles, and while most of the movies premiered earlier this year at Sundance, SXSW and Toronto, it's still an incredibly strong lineup. The galas, which will all play at Los Angeles' historic Mann's Chinese Theater, will include Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist (which Katey has been calling a likely contender for Best Picture this year), Roman Polanski's Carnage, Luc Besson's The Lady, Simon Curtis' My Week With Marilyn and Steve McQueen's Shame. The festival will also be hosting a screening of 1987's Law of Desire, as director Pedro Almodóvar is serving as this year's guest artistic director.
Special screenings will include Jim Field Smith's Butter; Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus; Mark Pellington's I Melt With You; Werner Herzog's Into The Abyss; The Duplass brothers' Jeff, Who Lives At Home; Jean-Pierre and Lic Dardenee's The Kid With A Bike; Lars von Trier's Melancholia; Gerardo Naranjo's Miss Bala; Wim Wenders' Pina; Oren Moverman's Rampart and Lynee Ramsay's We Need To Talk About Kevin.
This year's AFI Fest runs from November 3rd through the 10th. I will once again be on the scene to watch as many of the movies listed above as I can and letting you know everything I think about them. Be prepared for awesomeness!
