In front of a packed house on Wednesday at Grauman’s Chinese Theare, AFI FEST paid tribute to actor Viggo Mortensen before a gala screening of THE ROAD.

Preceding Tuesday night’s AFI FEST screening of THE LAST STATION, the Festival paid tribute to legendary actor Christopher Plummer. He began an interview full of witty comments with the observation that if he had to be anything other than an actor, he’d be “a drunk.”

AFI FEST 2009 presented by Audi today announced the complete lineup of films for the 23rd edition of the Festival, including the Closing Night Gala, Centerpiece Screening, Tributes and Special Presentations.

Joe Dante’s THE HOLE, Sean Byrne’s THE LOVED ONES, Ted Kotcheff’s WAKE IN FRIGHT and Michael Stephenson’s BEST WORST MOVIE and the RED RIDING trilogy

Los Angeles, CA, September 23, 2008—AFI FEST 2009 presented by Audi announces that 20th Century Fox’s FANTASTIC MR. FOX has been selected as the Festival’s Opening Night Gala presentation. FANTASTIC MR. FOX will have its North American Premiere when it opens AFI FEST on Friday, October 30, 2009 at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The Opening Night Gala is presented by Audi of America.

Heralded as “A movie that deserves to be called groundbreaking” by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone Magazine, FANTASTIC MR. FOX is visionary director Wes Anderson’s first animated film, utilizing classic handmade stop-motion techniques to tell the story of the best-selling children’s book by Roald Dahl (author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach). The film features the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Wally Wolodarsky, Eric Anderson, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, and Jarvis Cocker.

AFI FEST 2009 presented by Audi announces 12 films that will screen at this year’s Festival including Lee Daniels’ PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE, Werner Herzog’s THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS and Bong Joon-ho’s MOTHER.

Robert Koehler, Director of Programming Robert Koheler was annunced the new Director of Programming and you can read the report from Variety here.  Also Peter Martin from Cinematical (and former fest programming staff himself) wrote up and interesting analysis of the changing roles in the festival over the years here.  Thanks to Peter for the attention and welcome Robert!

AFI FEST presented by Audi 2008 award winners:

Grand Jury Prize for International Feature Competition: Federico Veiroj’s ACNE; Special Mention to Igor Voloshin’s NIRVANA.

International Documentary Grand Jury Prize: Kief Davidson’s KASSIM THE DREAM; Special Mention to Jan Louter’s THE LAST DAYS OF SHISHMAREF.

Shorts Jury Prize: Michel Lipkes’s THE LEGLESS BOY CANNOT DANCE; Special Mention to James Lees’s THE APOLOGY LINE

Everybody who attended Saturday’s Bill Plympton TALK/SHOW received a free, signed drawing from the cartoonist. And everybody who didn’t go missed out on way more than that.

The final day of the Sloan Film Summit began with the panel From Geek to Chic: The Growing Popularity of Science in Primetime Television.