Lowell's first film fest honors native daughter

A focus on Bette Davis, ethnic groups, and globalization

"Sacco and Vanzetti," about the 1920s murder trial of the Italian-born anarchists, is at the Lowell Film Festival.

To celebrate the centennial of Bette Davis, one of its most famous native daughters, the city of Lowell is hosting a special evening celebration on Wednesday.

The lineup is intriguing: a one-hour guided tour starting at 5:30 p.m. of downtown sites that would have been hopping in 1908, when Davis's family lived in the city; a one-hour conversation starting at 6:30 p.m. led by Davis expert Joe Bella, president of the Methuen Historical Society, and Winifred Wood, a Wellesley College faculty member who lectures on women in film; and a Hollywood Golden Age cocktail party from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at the Revolving Museum featuring a Davis look-alike contest.

A tribute to the movie star, who was born on April 5, 1908, is a kind of opening event for Friday and Saturday, when the first Lowell Film Festival officially fans out across the city. At venues including the O'Leary Library on the University of Massachusetts campus, the Lowell National Historical Park Visitor Center, and the Boott Cotton Mills Museum, this program is organized around the theme of "Immigration, Globalization, and the All-American City."

Friday night's headliner film is "Sacco and Vanzetti," a look at the murder trial in the 1920s of the two Italian-born anarchists. Director Peter Miller will be in attendance for a Q&A following the 7:30 show at the National Park Visitor Center. The Saturday closing film is director Abderrahmane Sissako's African courtroom drama "Bamako," which plays at 8 p.m. at the UMass library.

The Saturday schedule also includes a screening of Jenny Alexander 's 27-minute "Detained," a documentary that looks into what has happened to the families affected by the large-scale immigration raid in New Bedford last March (2 p.m. at the Revolving Museum). Other locally produced features on the lineup include "The Green Square Mile: The Story of the Charlestown Irish" (12:30 p.m., Pollard Library), "The Busker" (2 p.m., Pollard Library), and a showcase of short films by area high school and college students about immigrant and refugee experiences (11 a.m., Revolving Museum).

For details on the Bette Davis event, visit destinationworld.org or call 978-275-1831. For film festival information, go to lowellfilms.org or call 978-934-2904. The festival says that the schedule is subject to change, so check ahead to confirm a film or program.

OPENING WEEKEND FOR JEWISHFILM.2008: The annual festival of the National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University opened this weekend and runs for two more weeks.

The compact schedule includes two screenings of "And Along Come Tourists," a 2007 German film by writer/director Robert Thalheim. It's a semiautobiographical story of a Berlin youth who fulfills his civil service requirement by working at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, now a tourist locale. Thalheim, who was born in Berlin in 1974, will be at both screenings: Friday at 7 p.m. at the Harvard Film Archive, and next Sunday at 7 p.m. at the Wasserman Cinematheque on the Brandeis campus. The Sunday show will be introduced by Brandeis German professor Sabine von Mering.

Details about the festival are at jewishfilm.org and 781-899-7044. Harvard Film Archive information is at 617-495-4700 and hcl.harvard.edu/hfa.

TONIGHT: CHLOTRUDIS AWARDS: The 14th annual Chlotrudis Awards ceremony, which will honor the best of 2007's independent, documentary, and international film, takes place today at 5 p.m. at the Brattle Theatre. The public is invited to attend the black-tie event. The ceremony will honor Canadian actress Alberta Watson with its "Career So Far Award." The 53-year-old Watson played the mother characters in both "Spanking the Monkey" and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and the official who fired and then re-hired the character of Jack Bauer on the television show "24." She will be at the ceremony.

Further information about the event is online at chlotrudis.org.

INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL OF BOSTON SCHEDULE: The April festival, which has become one of the top events on the annual film calendar, has announced its schedule - 96 films in all - for its April 23 to April 29 run.

Brad Anderson's "Transsiberian" opens the festival and Werner Herzog's "Encounters at the End of the World" closes it. Among those scheduled to attend are actresses Famke Janssen and Mary Stuart Masterson and screenwriter-director Harmony Korine. Four panel discussions are scheduled, including a program titled "Breaking Into the Boston Film Industry."

The IFFBoston website, at iffboston.org, features the list of all the movies and will include links to many of their trailers. Tickets go on sale Tuesday at the site.

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