"My Best Friend" (with Daniel Auteuil and Julie Gayet) is expected to kick off the MFA's French Film Festival in July.
Hot times expected at festivals
With the Independent Film Festival of Boston in midswing , the city's warm-weather film festival season has officially begun. Looking out on the crowded summer calendar, it's clear you'll have to work hard to find a weekend when there isn't some program vying for your attention .
Below is a look at events happening both in the city and closer to the beaches or in the woods.
Summer festivals in Boston
Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival, May 9-20, at the Museum of Fine Arts. Director Jamie Babbit brings her "Itty Bitty Titty Committee" to women's opening night, while Carlos Portugal will present "East Side Story" for the men's opener. The festival features a number of foreign films of interest this year, including "El Calentito " from Spain and "Spider Lilies " from Taiwan. Also featured will be a screening of Jean Genet's "Un Chant D'Amour" from 1950 . (617-267-9300 and mfa.org/film)French Film Festival, July 6-23, Museum of Fine Arts. Last year's program offered a banquet of films with juicy roles for the leading ladies of France, including Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling, Isabelle Huppert, Jeanne Moreau, and Nathalie Baye. Expect another strong slate from this perennial favorite, which is likely to kick off with Patrice Leconte's "My Best Friend," starring Daniel Auteuil, Dany Boon, and Julie Gayet . (617-267-9300 , mfa.org/film)
Boston International Film Festival, June 6-13, Boston Common Theatre. The schedule is still being developed, but more than 70 short s and features are listed at the five-year-old festival's website including Shavar Ross's "Lord Help Us," a romantic comedy about a widowed minister . (617-482-3900 , bifilmfestival.com)
Roxbury Film Festival, Aug. 1-5. A showcase of work written, directed , or produced by African-American artists. Last year's Audience Favorite Award went to Byron Hurt's "Beyond Beats & Rhymes: A Hip-Hop Head Weighs in on Manhood in Hip-Hop Culture," and Hurt ended up being a frequent commentator earlier this month during the Don Imus meltdown . (617-541-3900, ext. 2321, roxburyfilmfestival.org)
Festivals outside the city
Newport International Film Festival, June 5-10, at venues in Newport, R.I. It was announced last week that a sneak peak of "Evening," a Newport-filmed movie with stars including Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Claire Danes, Vanessa Redgrave, and Natasha Richardson, will be the June 9 highlight. More than 100 features, documentaries, and short films are scheduled, including winners from the Sundance, Berlin, Tribeca, and Toronto film fests . (401-846-9100 , newportfilmfesti val.com)
Provincetown International Film Festival, June 13-17. This year the festival will honor Kathleen Turner and Alan Cummings. Former director Connie White is back at the helm as artistic director after one year away . (508-487- 3456 , ptownfilmfest.org)
Nantucket Film Festival, June 13-17. One of its highlights each year is a staged reading of a screenplay; last year's was a script called "Coup de tat" with a cast that included Jimmy Smits and Heather Graham . (212-708-1278 , nantucketfilmfestival.org)
Plymouth Independent Film Festival, July 18-22. Just three years old, this fest has shaped itself into a year-round programmer of events and parties. On May 12, for instance, it's co-hosting a fundraising concert for the Plymouth Music Competition featuring the Police Experience, a tribute band managed by Miles Copeland, brother of Police drummer Stewart Copeland. Last year it highlighted the work of documentary film superstars Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles, and Robert Drew and brought them all to town . (508-801-2530 , plyfilmfest.org)
Woods Hole Film Festival, July 28-Aug. 4. Also a year-round presence in Falmouth and Woods Hole, the fest ramps up in the heart and heat of summer for a week of movies and parties at a half-dozen venues. Last year's Best of the Fest Audience Award went to Jeanne Jordan and Steve Ascher 's documentary "So Much So Fast" on Newton's Stephen Heywood and his family . (508-495-3456 , woodsholefilmfestival.com)
Rhode Island International Film Festival, Aug. 7-12. A nother festival with year-round programming, including the month long Roving Eye Documentary Film Festival currently underway, the KidsEye five-day filmmaking camp, and monthly "You Be the Judge" evenings during which anyone can preview and help select films for the main festival line up . (401-861-4445 , film-festi val.org)
IFFB CONTINUING: There are still three more days of the Independent Film Festival of Boston, which is sprawled out around the city from Davis Square to Harvard Square to Coolidge Corner.
Although the festival doesn't explicitly highlight area filmmakers, a number of movies do have local connections. Tonight's "Hannah Takes the Stairs" stars Jamaica Plain 's Andrew Bujalski alongside fellow "mumblecore" filmmaker Mark Duplass as two of the men vying, awkwardly, for a young woman's heart. The 8:15 show at the Somerville Theatre is preceded by the 20-minute "The Back of Her Head," another tale of fumbled forays into love. It's by Josh Safdie, who graduates from Boston University this spring.
Also tonight at the Somerville at 8, Joe McIntyre stars in "On Broadway." It's West Roxbury native Dave McLaughlin's story of a budding playwright who puts on a play at a local pub (as McLaughlin did at The Burren in Somerville years ago). The movie was shot in Boston last year.
"Rumbo a Las Grandes Ligas" travels to the Dominican Republic for an exuberant look at the baseball culture that produced Red Sox superstars David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. It was directed by Jared Goodman and produced by Eran Lobel of Boston's Element Pro- ductions. (Lobel is also behind Boston.TV, a new site positioned as a Boston-centric YouTube .) "Rumbo" plays Monday at 8 p.m.
The festival closes Tuesday at 8 p.m. with a world premiere of Rhode Island director Michael Corrente's "Brooklyn Rules," a mob film with Alec Baldwin, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Mena Suvari.
Details on all films, including photos, descriptions, screening times, and venues, are online at iffboston.org. Reviews of some of the movies by the Globe's Wesley Morris and Ty Burr are online at boston.com/ae/movies; click on "Independent Film Festival of Boston turns five on Wednesday."
EARLY ANIMATION: Albert Steg is renowned around town for his film collection: he has more than 700 works of early animated shorts, 1950s educational reels, and 1970s and ' 80s commercials. Through his Zampano's Playhouse film series, he has put together evenings at the Zeitgeist Gallery and Enormous Room in Cambridge. "I see my programs," Steg has written, "as a revival of the small movie house or traveling filmshow traditions -- capturing the thrill and charm of the gently flickering film image."
Tuesday at 7 p.m., Steg will show a special collection at the Paradise Lounge as a closing event in the Photographic Resource Center's exhibit "Picture Show," which riffs on ways to re use early filmmaking techniques. Included will be Winsor McCay's 1914 work "Gertie the Dinosaur," in which an animator brings a dinosaur's museum bones to life; 1933's "Snow White," which pairs Betty Boop with Cab Calloway in a technique that married animation with rotoscope technology; and 1966 Marvel Comics cartoons that managed to animate existing print comics.
The 18 -plus show is free. Call the PRC at 617-975-0600 or go to thedise.com for details.
CONVERSATIONS WITH: Director Gina Kim presents her new "Never Forever," a drama about relationships between a white woman and two Asian - American men, Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Harvard Film Archive. Producer Andrew Fierberg will attend. And Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia will be at the HFA as well, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. He'll talk about "La Comunidad," his film about a real estate agent who discovers a stash of cash in an apartment. The HFA is presenting a miniseries of the satiric director's work through May 8. Information about all these programs is at 617-495-4700 and hcl.harvard.edu/hfa.
Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
