“Am I doing standup?” asked pint-sized thesp Ellen Page as she stepped into the spotlight at the front of the auditorium and adjusted the tad-bit-too-tall-for-her microphone before introducing the U.S. premiere of The Tracey Fragments. “Like Sarah Silverman or something? I wish.”

The Tracey Fragments, though, is no joke. Director Bruce McDonald’s award-winning adaptation of a Maureen Medved novel about a 15-year-old who describes herself as “just a normal girl who hates herself” is anything but “normal.” It’s a topsy-turvy tour de force that fractures a nonlinear narrative about titular tormented teen Tracey Berkowitz into a split-screen format that allows up to a dozen images to cascade across the audience’s eyes at once.

With its aesthetic echoing the panels of a comic book, it seems appropriate that a companion comic to The Tracey Fragments is one of the most popular promotional pieces here at AFI Fest.

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Despite a title that would lend itself to sequelization (American Spoon, anybody? How about American Knife?), the endearing indie dramedy American Fork is likely one of a kind. During a post-screening Q&A, however, screenwriter/star Hubbel Palmer served up another helping of his deliciously dry wit and offered a glimpse into the future of main character Tracy Orbison when an audience member asked if there was a girl out there for the emotional overeater whose heart is every bit as outsize as his “husky” frame.

“No, there’s not,” Palmer declared. “He will die alone.”

“By his own hand,” added director Chris Bowman with a chuckle.

After Palmer explained that American Fork is his attempt to make a movie about the rural area in Utah where he grew up and the type of people he interacted with there during his own career as a grocery clerk, another attendee asked what the reaction to the film had been in his hometown.

“Confusion,” Palmer deadpanned. “Mostly silence.”

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After seeing Anna Biller in person for the second time in as many days, I decided to cast my vote for Best-Dressed at the Fest for the Viva star/writer/director/producer/production designer/costume designer/editor. Striding around the second floor of the ArcLight, Biller was resplendently decked out in vintage-vamp evening gowns, gloves and boas.

It’s similar attention to period detail that so successfully evokes the campy vibe of the late ’60s/early ’70s sexploitation movies that Biller pays homage to in Viva—a fun farce about a bored Southern California housewife who gets swept away by the Sexual Revolution. During a post-screening Q&A, Biller told an adoring audience that she spent a year thrift-shopping as part of her preproduction process and continued to add to her costume collection throughout the ensuing year-and-a-half shoot.