Newport Beach Film Festival: Schedule of events

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21

Down Under Your Shorts. See Saturday, April 17. (11 a.m., Edwards Island 4) Made In Estonia. See Sunday, April 18. (11 a.m., Edwards Island 5) Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War. Bush is a lying sack of crap. There's your whole truth right there. If you wish to see that truth explored in greater depth, this documentary is a dandy place to start. (11 a.m., Orange County Museum of Art) American Cousins. See Thursday, April 22. (11:15 a.m., Edwards Island 3) Short-Animation-O-Rama. See Sunday, April 18. (11:30 a.m., Edwards Island 6) Dreaming of Tibet. See Saturday, April 17. (12:30 p.m., Lido Theater) Somalia's Handbook. Independent journalist Dominique Mollard journeys to Somalia to investigate rumors that the radical Islamic organization Al Itihad is harbored there. Al Itihad has been linked to Al Qaida, and Mollard's trip takes him into dangerous and lawless country, where he hears firsthand stories of the U.S.'s disastrous intervention in Somalia in 1993. (1 p.m., Orange County Museum of Art) Shut Up and Kiss Me. See Sunday, April 18. (1:15 p.m., Edwards Island 5) Song For A Raggy Boy. See Saturday, April 17. (1:15 p.m., Edwards Island 3) On Golden Shorts. See Monday, April 19. (1:30 p.m., Edwards Island 4) Little Brother of War. Eight year old Jay Williams is sent to stay with his mother's estranged sister after his parents die. Confused and unhappy, Jay sets off alone on an adventure across the country. (1:45 p.m., Edwards Island 6) The Boys of Buchenwald. When the Buchenwald Concentration Camp was liberated, more than 1,000 children were left without families to take them in. France agreed to take more than 450 children into their already overburdened orphanages, and this documentary follows three boys, the friendship they forged and the lives they've led over the past half a century. (3 p.m., Orange County Museum of Art) The Utopian Society. OC filmmaker John P. Aguirre's drama follows a motley group of college students who are given a class assignment to devise a plan for a utopian society. Of course they leave it until the last minute and then must cram a full semester's worth of work into one night, struggling to overcome their own differences at the same time that they're struggling to work out an ideal civilization. It's your basic Breakfast Club situation, with a not-terrible script and not- terrible performances. It's not terrible. (3 p.m., Lido Theater) Robbie Mullins. A comedy set in the world of high school baseball, Robbie Mullins follows a moody pitcher who is drawn away from his best pal Katie by the schemes of a prom queen-to-be attracted by his status as the school's star ball player. (3:30 p.m., Edwards Island 5) Cuba Libre. See Tuesday, April 20. (3:45 p.m. Edwards Island 3) He Shorts She Shorts by the Seashore. What would compel the people at the Newport Fest to inflict a title like this upon an unsuspecting populace? It hurts. God, it hurts. A varied bill of shorts includes Nancy Deren's Home, about a 10-year-old girl who experiences mixed emotions when her troubled mother comes home resolved to turn her life around. (4 p.m., Edwards Island 4) Zen Noir. A hard-boiled detective is called in when a monk keels over dead during a group prayer at a Buddhist temple. The detective soon finds that the monks are no hel