AFI FILM FEST: A WINDOW ON SOME FAR SHORES : THURSDAY

‘38 (Austria, 1986, 12:30 p.m.). A foreign-language finalist at this year’s Oscars, “ ‘38” unravels in Vienna in the days prior to Austria’s Nazification. The story concerns a politically illicit romance between a Jewish journalist and a noted Aryan actress, neither of whom wants to confront the imminent peril of their situation. Writer-director Wolfgang Gluck plumbs familiar Holocaust territory with assurance but little originality contrasting the outward serenity of the environment with the unceasing tragedy inherent in the social climate.