There’s an elephant on the red carpet at this year’s Dallas International Film Festival – a question that lends an underlying tension to the crowds, excitement, celebrity sightings, and gala screenings: can the Dallas International Film Festival survive its break-up with the American Film Institute? Just think, only four years ago Dallas IFF’s Michael Cain was running the Deep Ellum Film Festival, which, though fresh and energetic, was considered second pony to the city’s older and more established USA Film Festival. Then Cain made the brilliant move of partnering with AFI, leasing the organization’s consultants and good name to leap frog into the position as the city’s premiere film festival, seemingly poised to jockey for state-wide prominence with Austin’s South By Southwest. In three years, AFI Dallas raised the bar. You only had to attend the festival to feel the difference. The films were quality, there were more stars (including a fair number of A-list celebrities), and the Dallas festival carried itself like it was something – parties, galas, and events that made it feel like the real deal.

But in June 2009, Cain and festival organizers announced that the deal with AFI was over, and the festival would regroup and reform as the Dallas International Film Festival. The question on the table last summer – which remains there these days leading up to festival’s opening Thursday evening: is the new Dallas International Film Festival the real deal?

This year’s festival is smaller than previous festivals and the density of A-list celebrities and filmmakers is down slightly, but Dallas IFF has maintained the core elements, indicating staying power. The festival will still feature a number of competitions, including narrative, documentary, Texas-made, and short film competitions, and has added a couple of interesting new competitions: a prize for animation, which will hopefully cast some deserved light on Dallas’ homegrown digital effects and post production industry, and a prize for environmentally-themed films (which may raise out-of-towner’s eyebrows given our reputation for highway loving and guzzling trucks). There is also a Mexico showcase to celebrate our southern neighbor’s bicentennial. That portion of the fest is responsible for bringing one of my favorite filmmakers, Guillermo Arriaga (Babel, Amores perros), to town. I would love to see a recurring effort on the part of the festival to plumb undiscovered works from Central and South America, while forging new ground with a homegrown audience of first, second, and third generation Latino Americans.

While the best advice for any festival is to buy a pass, grab a guide, and let your gut lead you in and out of screenings, here’s a taste of some films worth seeing and some worth avoiding at this year’s Dallas International Film Festival.

CENTERPIECE SCREENING

The cast of The Jones showing off their wares.

The Joneses – Sat. Apr. 10, 7 p.m. Angelika 6 / Sun. Apr. 11, 2:45 p.m. Angelika 8: Don’t Bother: The film staring 1990s super stars David Duchovney and Demi Moore feels like an idea thrown out in the office of a loud-mouthed Hollywood producer: “Listen here, we got this family, see, only they’re all salesman trying to peer pressure their upscale suburban neighbors into conspicuous consumption. It’s a commentary on American consumerism, you see. It’ll be great.” It’s not. The script is awful and cringe-worthy, the jokes are lame, the relationship between Kate (Demi Moore) and Steve (David Duchovny) couldn’t be flatter, and the final twist is so overwrought and out-of-sync with the rest of the film’s casual, mind-less drone, that it feels like a last ditch effort to try to say something with this flick. It will come out in theaters in coming months, though I’m not sure why The Joneses isn’t going straight to DVD and cable rotation.

NARRATIVE COMPETITION

We Are the Sea – Sat. Apr. 10, 6 p.m. Magnolia 4 / Sun. Apr. 11, 12 p.m. Magnolia 4: Worth A Shot: Writer-director Neil Truglio shows a great deal of promise with his debut about an aimless young man drowning in a quarter-life crisis. Jeff Childress plays Sean, a high school teacher haunted by a deceased, overbearing father and he can’t believe life ended up as it did. Childress’ muted performance rings true; he is like a deer caught in life’s headlights, and provokes a good deal of emotion with his fading eyes and faraway glances. Truglio’s camera work also shows an instinct for visual storytelling. During a scene between Sean and his mother, he cuts off Sean’s head in his frame. Each time students leave Sean’s classroom, the camera follows their feet out the door – a short, subtle but effective POV that works Sean into our minds. Unfortunately the writing could be stronger, with some didactic and self-explicating diatribes, and there are a handful of weak performances in supporting rolls. Austin-based Iron and Wine provides the music, a good tonal match, though Truglio often leans too heavily on the songs to provide emotional bang when the film is shooting blanks.

DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

Nobuyuki Tsujii performs at the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition in A Surprise in Texas

A Surprise in Texas – Sun. Apr. 11, 7:30 p.m. Magnolia 5 / Mon. Apr. 12, 10:30 p.m. Magnolia 5: Go See It: Easily one of the best films I’ve seen all year, A Surprise in Texas follows the contestants in last year’s Van Cliburn International piano competition in Fort Worth. The film is carried not only by the dynamic, charming, and inviting young personalities in the competition, but through the film’s use of the music they play. As a result, A Surprise in Texas tells both a human story and the story of an art. Watching these young people perform their music, it is impossible not to become deeply engaged with them. We also become entranced with music itself, as if we are hearing these classic pieces by Beethoven, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff for the first time. “These artists are the priests of their art,” a competition judge says in the film. After a tear-wrenching hour-and-a-half, you can’t help but agree that there is indeed something holy about the experience.

WORLD CINEMA

Shirley Adams – Fri. Apr. 9, 7:30 p.m. Angelika 8 / Tues. Apr. 13, 10:15 p.m. Angelika 7: Worth A Shot: Set in Cape Town, South Africa, Shirley Adams is a emotionally difficult, close-focused study of the relationship between a mother and her quadriplegic teenage son. Just imagine this situation: a streetwise teenage is suddenly forced into a situation in which his mother bathes, feeds, clothes, and moves his adolescent body, while he is left to stare at the walls of their sober, lower-class home, listening to the radio and hating life. He tries to commit suicide and forges an uneasy relationship with an attractive young nurse who offers to rehabilitate him. The real story here is of a mother’s love, alternating between generous and self-serving, obsessive and endearing. The film is shot in a gritty, documentary style that thrusts the viewer into an uncomfortable and intimate experience of life in the Adams’ house.

MEXICO SPOTLIGHT

Harold Torres as Andrés in Northless.

Northless – Sun. Apr. 11, 4:30 p.m. Magnolia 4 / Tues. Apr. 13, 1 p.m. Magnolia 4: Go See It: Rigoberto Perezcano’s Northless almost feels like an early Wim Wenders film (I’m thinking here of Alice in the Cities or Kings of the Road). It is visually patient, emotionally strained, and underplayed. The characters are quiet and withdrawn, obviously suffering deep, unspoken pain, and they are drawn together by a desperate, balm-seeking attraction. Andres is a married father of two from Oaxaca who has traveled north to cross the border into the United States. After multiple unsuccessful attempts, he ends up working in a small store on the Mexican side of the border, where he encounters two women who have been abandoned by their own husbands (both have already crossed the border). Andres’ relationships are largely unspoken, and we are left wondering about the intentions and desires of the three main characters. Perezcano succeeds by depicting immigrant life in a way that avoids the noise of news, sociology, and statistics, instead sticking to a lyrical love story. We don’t see a broken system, but broken people and broken hearts.

TEXAS COMPETTITION

Sweet Science: A Boxing Documentary – Mon. Apr. 12, 7 p.m., Angelika 6 / Thurs. Apr. 15, 4:30 p.m., Angelika 8: Go See It: More than half-a-decade in the making, Chris Howell’s documentary about the Oak Cliff Boxing Club is everything a good sports movie can be – competition informing the real life story, like music supporting a narrative feature. Greg Hatley gave up a reliable career as a Dallas Fire Fighter to open a boxing club, in part to train his son for the Olympics, but also to help kids in the neighborhood rise above the destructive influence of the ‘hood. You could call Sweet Science boxing’s Hoop Dreams, but that would undercut something unique that the sport of boxing adds to this film — its physical purity, it’s intense focus on individual athleticism and drive, it’s balletic violence. Hately’s boys possess a capacity for so much love and determination. We can’t help but be moved by them and filled with neighborly pride.

DALLAS IFF ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JAMES FAUST’S PICKS

The day before the festival’s opening, James Faust suggested keeping an eye on these movies:

I Am Love – Fri. Apr. 9, 7 p.m. Magnolia 4 / Mon. Apr. 12, 4:15 p.m. Angelika 7: This Italian film staring Tilda Swinton is one of the hottest tickets in the fest.

Disco Atomic War – Wed. Apr. 14, 10:15 p.m. Angelika 7 / Thurs. Apr. 15, 4 p.m. Angelika 6: Faust says a future Dallas IFF country spotlight may focus on Estonia, given all of the good work being made there currently, as this film demonstrates. Local angle: it includes an eerie reference to the TV show Dallas.

Brotherhood – Mon. Apr. 12, 7:30 p.m. Magnolia 5 / Tues. Apr. 13, 10 p.m. Magnolia 4: Having won the SXSW audience award, Arlington-native Will Canon’s movie is a front runner for the narrative feature competition.

Tomorrow: An interview with James Faust.