17
MONDAY
How to Botch a Jewel Heist in Three Easy Steps: (1) Come up with the perfect plan. (2) Make it your last big score. (3) Employ the services of an unpredictable hothead at the last minute. Sigh. One would think that the fictional denizens of independent caper-gone-wrong films would have learned a lesson from their post-Tarantino Hollywood counterparts. Yet it somehow still manages to come as a surprise to Niecythe shoplifting window-dresser of DeMane Davis’ 2001 urban drama Liftwhen her scheme to swipe a fancy necklace for her emotionally neglectful mother is suddenly complicated by an unplanned pregnancy and her partner’s ulterior motives. Lift screens as part of the Producer’s Club of Maryland/Sundance Labs Fellowship Films series (which runs through Thursday, Nov. 20, and includes Michael Burke’s 2002 The Mudge Boy and Rodrigo Garcia’s 2001 Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her) at 7:30 p.m. at the American Film Institute’s Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. $8.50. (301) 495-6700. (Matthew Borlik)