FILM/SNEAK PEEK : WHAT'S UP, `DOCS'? PLENTY.

Byline: - Bob McCarthy

Shake, rattle and roll.

So it went at the International Documentary Congress 3 last week as two catchy programs, ``Docs Rock'' and ``Docs That Shook the World,'' rolled for appreciative audiences that included documentarians, industry types, docuphiles and just plain music lovers.

The opening-night screening of ``Docs Rock'' created a buzz in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater as the camera locked onto some of the world's greatest rock bands. Hosted by Elvis Mitchell of National Public Radio, the program was broken into four categories: Documenting the Famous, Performance Documentary as Art, Framing Festivals and Covering the Music Scene.

The good times rolled again with ``Let It Be'' (1970), ``Woodstock'' (1970) and ``Gimme Shelter,'' the Rolling Stones' free concert at Altamont Speedway at which Hells Angels attacked and killed a spectator in full view of the stage. It progressed into punk (``The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle'' and ``The Decline of Western Civilization''), the Irish super band U2 (``Rattle and Hum,'') and grunge (``Hype!), Doug Pray's look at the explosion of the Seattle music scene with performances and interviews with Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Soundgarden.

Between rock and grunge came an entertaining segue from 1980, ``Divine Madness!'' - an all-round performance of song and chat by the divine Bette Midler.

The shaking continued into the next night when Betsy McLane, the executive director of the International Documentary Association, opened ``Docs That Shook the World'' with a simple explanation: These were films that mobilized people by changing their perceptions.

The moving images that passed across the screen included home movies of Romanovs as they played games, danced, inspected troops and greeted dignitaries to the Russian palace. In making the ``Fall of the Romanov Dynasty'' in 1927, a female editor named Dziga Vertov found a box marked ``Counter-revolutionary material'' after the Bolshevik Revolution that contained the ruling family's footage. Then she edited in scenes of everyday, working life in Russia - coal miners, children, laborers - that stood in juxtaposition to the images of the ruling czar and his relatives in their privileged surroundings. In a forerunner to later documentaries, Vertov took archival film that was shot for one purpose and gave it a completely different meaning.

That was certainly the case in ``Night and Fog,'' the 1955 French documentary by Alain Resnais that retraces the steps of the Jews who endured the concentration camps erected by the Nazis. Like Vertov, he obtained footage the Nazis had shot to document their achievements to later generations of Germans. However, with the fall of the Third Reich, the film was captured by Allied troops and used for a more sobering purpose: to re-enact the plight of European Jews who were singled out by their Aryan conquerors.

And as a reminder that each decade has its rallying cry, documentaries about Vietnam (``The War at Home'' and ``Hearts and Minds''), the nuclear age (``Hiroshima-Nagasaki, August 1945'' and ``If You Love This Planet'') and the AIDS epidemic (``Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt'') brought back images of student sit-ins, young Americans fighting in Vietnam and ground zero after a nuclear blast.

Enthusiatic response!

Organizers of the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival were ecstatic this week about record attendance at the city's largest annual festival of its kind.

More than 45,000 people attended screenings and events, and more than 2,000 alone turned out for the U.S. premiere of director Roberto Benigni's ``Life Is Beautiful'' at Mann's Chinese Theater.

The Grand Jury Prize was given to the Finnish entry ``Fire-Eater.'' The first Spanish-language entry in the competition, ``The Other Conquest'' from Mexico, sold out.

Secular the spiritual

Heaven and earth converge today as the fifth annual City of the Angels Film Festival gets under way at the Directors Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.

This year's theme is ``Chasing the Sacred: The Cinema of Spirituality,'' and features ``Andrei Rublev'' by Andrei Tarkovsy at noon, ``Jesus of Montreal'' by Denys Arcand at 4:15 p.m. and Robert Duvall's ``The Apostle'' at 8 p.m. Other films being screened during the weekend are ``Breaking the Waves'' and ``Wings of Desire.''

For ticket or program information, call [phone].