By Margaret A. McGurk
The Cincinnati Enquirer

One of the 35 short films chosen to be shown alongside high-profile feature debuts at the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival that begins today and runs through Nov. 16 is a sports saga with roots on the west side of Cincinnati.

Writer-director Scott Leberecht's short, nearly wordless comedy about the worst wrestler on a high school team was inspired by his own stint as a wrestler at Bridgetown Junior High School. "I was awful," he says.

The title character in Underdog suffers the contempt of his teammates and abuse by a bully until he reaches a critical turning point.

"The coolest thing about the piece is it's almost a silent film. There is one line of dialogue in the whole nine minutes. Mostly it's set to music," Leberecht says.

The film represents the launch of what Leberecht calls "the second chapter in my film career." His move to writing and directing was triggered by a moment of truth he experienced as a special-effects artist on such big-budget movies as Sleepy Hollow and Eraser with Industrial Light and Magic, the legendary FX house founded by George Lucas.

As much as he savored the work, however, he was growing frustrated with some of the results.

"We were working really, really hard to make special-effects the best they could be for all these films," he says. "Then when the film would come out, the story and the performances were so bad - I would be embarrassed by it. I didn't want to tell people I worked on the movie.

"I met a lot of these directors as well, and they weren't impressing me. I thought 'This is ridiculous. I know I can do this. I've got to try.' "

So he enrolled in the prestigious American Film Institute, where he recently graduated from the two-year directing program.

Underdog was filmed in four days at a California high school with a crew that coincidentally included two other relocated Cincinnatians - first assistant director John Mattingly, and makeup artist Ken Neiderbaumer.

"I didn't really know they were here until this project," Leberecht says.

The AFI festival was the first where Underdog was entered, and the first accepted. Submissions are also pending for the Sundance, Miami, Santa Barbara and Berlin fests.

Meanwhile, Leberecht is forging ahead; his new short film, a science-fiction piece called Natural Selection is due to be finished this month.

E-mail mmcgurk@enquirer.com