Fest opener's an attention grabber

Director Jennifer Sharp's zippy romantic comedy "I'm Through With White Girls," which opens the Roxbury Film Festival Thursday, is more clever and less mean than the title might imply.

"Enterprise" actor Anthony Montgomery plays Jay Brooks, a sunny, PlayStation-jabbing, thrift-store-clothes-wearing dude who's used to being the only black guy in the room. White girls play lame folk guitar at the clubs he hangs out in and his white roommate is a sweet goofball.

The movie opens with a montage of all the women Jay has dumped over the years, each reading a variation of the same goodbye note. The common denominator of his failures: the women's whiteness ("and you," one friend reminds him). So Jay decides to try dating black women, although the white guys at the publishing house where he draws comics are skeptical. "I so don't see black chicks digging you," says one.

Of course, one does. Lia Johnson's Catherine has the narrow-faced beauty of singer Alanis Morissette, the ropey dreadlocks of playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, and the Valley-girl verbal tics of a Southern California tween. She's a successful writer, as offbeat and artsy as Jay, and they're both hot for each other. Most of the film is about how this good thing plays out for the commitment-phobic 30-year-old.

Sharp, speaking by phone from Los Angeles, says the script was written by Courtney Lilly ("Arrested Development," "Everybody Hates Chris," "My Boys") back when he was in college. Johnson knew Lilly and acquired it as a project she could star in.

"I met Lia at one of her fund-raising parties," says Sharp. "I'm always really supportive of other artists who are taking the steps to make things happen, and the fact that she was a woman, and the fact that she was a black woman, was cool." Johnson didn't have a director lined up, and within the year Sharp was signed on.

And the movie's name? "The first title was 'I'm Through With White Girls,' and Lia and Anthony and I all hated it," says Sharp. "We came up with 'The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks,' which I actually love. To me, it kind of shows the movie as a more quirky, more intelligent romantic comedy."

People told her the title reminded them of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which was fine by Sharp. So it entered the festival circuit as "Inevitable Undoing." But even though the movie started picking up awards from the get-go (best actress at the Atlanta Film Festival, best narrative feature at both the Pan African Cannes Film Festival and Hollywood Black Film Festival), "nobody could ever remember that title, and as far as marketing, 'I'm Through With White Girls' got a lot more attention," says Sharp. "So we kind of folded."

Don't let the title put you off. The Roxbury festival opens Wednesday with a reception and screening of a shorts program at the Roxbury Center for the Arts at Hibernian Hall, and both Sharp and Montgomery will be at the Museum of Fine Arts Thursday at 7:30 p.m. with "I'm Through With White Girls." The movie also screens next Sunday afternoon, and Sharp will be on a panel Saturday afternoon about financing indie films.

The festival is smaller than in past years, but the schedule still includes more than 50 shorts and features "celebrating people of color," three discussion panels, an acting workshop with coach Susan Batson, a dinner-and-a-movie event on Friday night, an appearance by Victoria Rowell ("The Young and the Restless") with her short film "The Mentor," and a free afternoon of short films made by teens. Most of the events take place Friday, Saturday, and next Sunday. The schedule is online at roxburyfilmfestival.org, or call 617-849-6321 for information.

MARTHA'S VINEYARD FEST: Picking up after the Aug. 1-5 Roxbury festival is the Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival, which runs Aug. 8-11. This is the fifth year of programming out on the island, and this year the schedule has movies (including "I'm Through With White Girls"), a wine tasting, nightly parties, and an evening with actress Phylicia Rashad ("The Cosby Show"). The festival takes place in Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven. The schedule is still being finalized, but most information is already online at mvaaff.com/index2.html.

CONVERSATION WITH: Documentarian Robert Richter will present his 2006 film "The Last Atomic Bomb" Saturday at 3:45 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts. The movie looks back at the US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the arms race from the 1950s to the 1980s, and today's nuclear proliferation issues.

Richter got his start working for CBS News with Edward R. Murrow, Fred Friendly, Walter Cronkite, and Mike Wallace, and went on to serve as president of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers for 14 years. Details about the Saturday program are at 617-267-9300 and mfa.org/film, and Richter's own website: richtervideos.com.

CRAZY LOVE: Would you totally transform your face to rekindle a romance? Disappear from your lover and then reappear with a completely new look but not disclose that it's still you? And what about the jealousy; could you control your rage if your old lover was attracted to the new you, not knowing that the old you is underneath? Complicated, eh? Those are the premises behind Korean director Kim Ki-duk's new film "Time," which is getting a prominent residency at the MFA beginning next weekend. It plays Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 12:30 and 5:30 p.m., and five additional dates through Aug. 12.

Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com.