Duration: June 17-26 City: Los Angeles Country: USA Edition: 10th/2004 Venues: DGA, ArcLight, Laemmle Sunset 5 Official Site: LA Film Fest Other Years: LA Film Fest

Plume Noire was at the 10th IFP Los Angeles Film Festival to bring you exclusive reviews direct from the Sunset Strip. Undoubtedly one of the highlights has been the premiere of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a left-leaning, celebrity-filled screening that brought cheers and laughter from the audience—click here to read more about the premiere. As edgy as usual, the selection of films this year is excellent.

After the Apocalypse Shot in black and white, Yasuaki Nakajima's first film centers around five survivors trying to cope with their new life in an alienated world.

Cowards Bend The Knee After having approached different universes—death, religion, vampires & even musicals—here Guy Maddin explores his own fantasies.

Fahrenheit 9/11 Michael Moore is a formidable war machine: a highly skilled strategist, he furbishes his weapons to carry out the offensive against four years of George W. Bush's politics. However, in regards to cinema, once again he takes out the heavy artillery.

Hero In Hero, Yimou Zhang's Chinese blockbuster, invincible and noble warriors defy the laws of weightlessness, squaring off on the glossy surface of a lake, fending off thousands of arrows, always moving with grace and precision like sharp pieces of a belligerent choreography.

High Tension When you think about French cinema, gore films don't exactly come to mind.

Intimate Strangers In Patrice Leconte's new film, a tale of mistaken identity and platonic love, a woman opens the wrong door and ends up in the office of a financial analyst instead of on the divan of the psychiatrist with whom she had a first appointment next door.

Ju-on: The Grudge Ju-on: The Grudge, the latest horror import from Japan, is an adaptation of a straight-to-video series, whose cult status has contributed to generate a couple of on-screen adaptations as well as an American remake.

Maria Full of Grace For his first feature film, director Joshua Marston takes a look at all of the hideous details involved in the drug trade.

Monumental Monumental chronicles the uncompromising journey of David Brower, an environmentalist who for most of his life fought for the preservation of America's natural treasures.

Nina Set in the hip underground world of Sao Paulo, Nina follows a young girl as she struggles to make ends meet, under the pressure of her roommate & landlord, a sinister old lady who locked the fridge before ultimately threatening to kick her out in the streets without any remorse.

Overnight Overnight is unique in its genre as it's at the same time a documentary that morphs into a real-life comedy, drama, a how-not-to-guide for debutant filmmakers and a tale of revenge.

Red Lights A suspense film with strong doses of dark comedy, Cédric Kahn's new film shows how our lives and the consequences of our acts can get caught in a precise and intricate mechanism only controlled by fate.

Shorts Program 2 The program included 9 films of various lengths and styles, somewhat a good representation of what that format is about.

Tarnation Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation marks another bold step, pushing the limits of the documentary to create an emotionally rough piece bathed in raw visuals.

Vibrator Japanese cinema has offered its share of provocative fare these last few years, mostly from cult iconoclast director Takeshi Miike and Vibrator looked like an entry into the post-Miike era, ready to explore the road-movie genre with a strong dose of provocation.

We Don't Live Here Anymore A long-delayed adaptation of a couple of short stories by Andre Dubus, We Don't Live Here Anymore plunges the audience into the heart of an emotional spiral that links two couples.

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession While she never met Jerry Harvey, Z's main programmer and central figure of this documentary, director Xan Cassavetes did get to watch Z when she was little and, most importantly, she certainly understands what great cinema is, thanks to her own genetic heritage.

Zatoichi After the melodrama Dolls, Takeshi Kitano returns to the Japanese "style", while directing a chambara or Japanese sabre film, crossed with dazzling visuals and narrative.