This weekend is an excellent one at NWFF where you can’t go wrong with either of the movies that start a week of screenings on Friday night. Art & Copy is a documentary about the world of advertising–its history, its development, its inner workings and its ineffable impact on modern culture. How did advertising transform from an underrated necessity of doing business to a ubiquitous part of daily life? In Art & Copy you’ll meet the legends of the industry and explore the powerful nexus of art, business and feeling while learning the stories behind the big campaigns that convert advertising taglines into cultural slogans. Friday night’s 7 pm screening is followed by a discussion featuring local advertising experts Pam Fujimoto and Cal McAllister.

Tony Manero, John Travolta’s character in the disco themed 70s epic of frustrated youth, become an inspirational figure for Raul Peralta (Alfredo Castro), a fiftysomething misanthrope living in Pinochet’s brutal Chile of 1978 whose only real joy seems to be in repeated viewings of Saturday Night Fever. A powerful examination of delusion and disorder, Tony Manero is gritty, challenging and utterly absorbing.

Martin Scorsese is best known for his influential works that present an unflinching look at crime, violence, guilt and redemption, films like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, but his career has been broad enough in range to include a filmed version of the musical New York, New York and the legendary documentary of The Band’s last show, The Last Waltz. The Grand Illusion presents a program of films that illustrate the wide scope of Scorsese’s work from the early days of his career, while he was still working his way up to legend. The five shorts included in Five by Scorsese range from works made in the 60s all the way up to 1978′s American Boy and cover an array of genres and topics.

Speaking of unflinching looks at violence, Midnight at the Egyptian this weekend is Quentin Tarantino’s bloody black comedy crime caper, Resevoir Dogs.

Renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki, perhaps best known in America for the lyrical Spirited Away, offers up a new tale of wonder with Ponyo, a “Little Mermaid” inspired story of a goldfish who longs to become human; the English version features voices by Noah Cyrus, Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Cloris Leachman, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin, Betty White and Frankie Jonas. At Metro Cinemas.

Also at Metro Cinemas: SIFF festival favorite Cold Souls, an odd and entrancing film in which Paul Giamatti plays an anxious, world-weary version of himself struggling to find the perfect pitch for his interpretation of Uncle Vanya. He thinks he’s found the perfect solution when he comes across a company that extracts the soul from the body, but it’s only the beginning of his complex intercontinental quest to find that part of himself that is his self.

Become a competitor on “American Idol” and you might become a pop star; mostly likely, you’ll have a few weeks of madness and then go on to an ordinary life with the worst possible outcome of your experience on the show seeing you become a minor pop culture punchline for a week or two. In Afghanistan, slowly recovering from years of civil war, military invasion and the strictness of Taliban law, working up the nerve to compete on Afghan Idol means taking the chance of risking a lot more than a minor insult to your pride. Music and dancing are still regarded darkly by fundamentalists and conservatives; contestants on the Afghan version of the pop idol producing show aren’t just having a lark–they’re making a political statement that could see them losing everything they have, even their lives. Still, they persist, risking all for the chance of a little fame and a little bit of money. Afghan Star follows four contestants from different backgrounds and with differing motivations as they navigate their way through the complex and even dangerous process of auditioning and competing for their moment in the spotlight. At the Varsity.