Capsule Reviews of AFI Film Festival

Following are capsule reviews of a selection of the screenings today and Sunday at the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival at the Cineplex Odeon Cenutry Plaza Cinemas.

SUNDAY

‘The Summer of Aviya’

Israel, 1988, 94 minutes 8:30 p.m. Gila Almagor, grande dame among Israeli actresses, fashions one of her finest roles in this charming, funny and deeply poignant memoir of a bright 10-year-old girl, Aviya (Kaipo Cohen, an enchantress), whose warm, loving and fiercely independent mother (Almagor) is periodically wracked with mental breakdowns as a result of her experiences as a Holocaust survivor. Beautifully directed by Eli Cohen, who also plays a neighbor whom Aviya fantasizes as the father she refuses to believe is dead. Exhilarating, never maudlin. RECOMMENDED.