The lineup and special tributes for this year’s SF International Film Festival were announced this morning, and I won’t waste time relaying the handful I’m most looking forward to after a few well-selected 2009 premiers including advertising industry retrospective Art & Copy and (Untitled)‘s satirical look at the modern art market. Starting in April, the following look most intriguing:

Short film maker and animator Don Hertzfeldt will be honored with a “Persistence of Vision” award on April 23 at Kabuki Cinemas before the Life, Death and Very Large Utensils program. The semitragic work he draws by hand before shooting with antique 16mm or 35mm film cameras is can’t-close-the-browser-window good, including this rejected cartoons video (which won’t be screening during the festival, though shorts Intermission in the Third Dimension and I am so proud of you will be).

And, in the Golden Gate Awards competition for documentaries:

Mugabe and the White African (left) directed by Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson, England 2009
“A white African farmer in Zimbabwe fights to retain his land in opposition to the policies of the Mugabe administration. With no recourse in Zimbabwe, he takes his case to the African court.”

Simonal: No One Knows How Tough It Was directed by Cláudio Manoel, Micael Langer and Calvito Leal, Brazil 2009
“Who was Wilson Simonal? This deft documentary interweaves memorable songs by the onetime star of Brazilian popular music with interviews and masterful photomontage to explore the dramatic rise and fall of one of Brazil’s most popular singers in a time of military dictatorship.”

Finally (and there will be much more on this subject to follow), these new director award competitors are generating buzz this week:

Tehroun, directed by Nader Takmil Homayoun, France/Iran 2009
“A beggar rents a baby from local mobsters to ply his trade. When a prostitute steals the child he must delve into Tehran’s underbelly to find her and retrieve the baby.”

You Think You’re the Prettiest, but You Are the Sluttiest (right) directed by Ché Sandoval, Chile 2009 // North American Premiere
“Horny twentysomething boy-men cruise around the suburbs of Santiago trying to get laid, but instead discover the meaning of life, sort of, in Chilean writer/director Ché Sandoval’s mock epic.”