AFI Fest 2011 has completed its programming with the addition of four films selected by the festival's guest artistic director, Pedro Almodovar. The films include the classic film noir "The Killers," and the 1960 thriller "Eyes Without a Face," which served as a clear influence on Almodovar's new film, "The Skin I Live In."
The festival previously announced that Almodovar's own early film "Laws of Desire" will screen as part of a November 7 tribute to the director.
Almodovar has prepared extensive notes on the films he selected for the AFI Fest program guide. The films, he said in a press release announcing his selections, "in some way, albeit tangentially … have a relationship with my present."
His selections: "Eyes Without a Face" (left), a 1960 horror classic from French director Georges Franju, whose plot is clearly echoed in "The Skin I Live In"; "Le Cercle Rouge," a 1970 crime drama by Jean-Pierre Melville with a legendary 30-minute heist sequence; "Nightmare Alley," a 1947 noir set in a traveling carnival, directed by Edmund Golding and starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell; and "The Killers," Robert Siodmak's 1946 noir classic, which marked Burt Lancaster's film debut and also starred Ava Gardner and Edmond O'Brien.
Free tickets to the AFI Fest, which is presented by Audi, will be available to the public on Thursday after a 24-hour period in which AFI members can obtain them.
The festival will take place from November 3 through November 10 at locations in Hollywood, including the Chinese and Egyptian Theaters and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
