Films that look beyond borders

In a vivid example of how much foreign cultures have crossed and merged, the Boston Latino International Film Festival opens Friday with a movie that's set in. . . Montreal.

"Imitation" follows a Mexican woman played by Vanessa Bauche ("Amores Perros") who travels to Canada to look for the husband who has left her. Director Federico Hidalgo also based his previous film, "A Silent Love," in Montreal and Mexico. In an interview with the website cinema-quebecois.net when the earlier film came out, Hidalgo noted that "so many images and ideas circulate about what places are really like that everybody comes to the film with certain expectations about Mexico and Mexicans, Canada and Canadians."

Challenging expectations is always a part of the BLIFF, now in its sixth go-round. This year it features 70 films, two receptions, and two panels over eight days.

The free panels particularly get at the issue of expectation. One explores the challenges of being a woman making Latin films. That takes place Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at the Harvard Film Archive and will be followed by a screening of "Companeras," a documentary about an all-female mariachi band. The other, scheduled for Oct. 20 at 2 p.m. at Boston University, examines Latino stereotypes in films. It will be conducted in Spanish.

The festival opens with a reception on Friday at 5 p.m. at the Sert Gallery at Harvard University, just upstairs from the Harvard Film Archive. "Imitation" plays immediately after at 7 p.m. The rest of the program, which goes through Oct. 21, takes place at the Museum of Fine Arts, Coolidge Corner Theatre, and Howard Thurman Center at Boston University. The schedule is online at bliff.org.

THE SURREAL LIFE: Back in 1974, WGBH developed a series called "The New Television Workshop" to support the creation and development of experimental video art. One of its early participants was Ros Barron, a Boston artist whose work tilts toward the surreal with the use of collage, spoken word, and improv.

Her 15-minute short, "Magritte sur la Plage," made in 1976, became the first of a four-film series, developed over 30 years, called the "Magritte Quartet." The most recent short is "Magritte Meets Descartes," completed just this year.

The quartet, along with three other works by Barron, will be shown on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the MFA in a retrospective program. Information is at 617-267-9300 and mfa.org/film.

COMEDY FEST: The Boston International Comedy and Movie Festival opens today, and Imagine magazine is hosting a movie night at 7 p.m. at the Improv Asylum on Hanover Street in the North End. Thirteen shorts will vie for a $1,000 prize that will go to the audience favorite. They include "Telephony," by Tom Bennett, "Pump Action," by Laura Park, and "Cookie de Mayo," by Carl Hansen.

The Comedy Festival, which features loads of stand-up, is at venues around the city through Saturday. Details are at boston comedyfestival.com and 617-782-8100.

N.H. FEST: The program formerly known as the New Hampshire Film Expo - this year celebrating its seventh anniversary - opens this week with a sparkly lineup and new name: the New Hampshire Film Festival.

"The Sensation of Sight," which was shot in Peterborough, N.H., plays Saturday at 8 p.m. It stars David Strathairn as a middle-age English teacher going through a midlife crisis and finding his awakening. "Row Hard No Excuses" is about the attempt by rowers Tom Mailhot (who grew up in Concord, N.H.) and John Zeigler to row across the Atlantic as part of an international competition. It plays Saturday at 6:20 p.m.

The festival opens Thursday at 12:45 p.m. with a free showing of "War/Dance," a film set in Uganda about three children living in a refugee camp who compete in a music and dance festival. The movie won the Grand Jury Award for best directing in a documentary at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

"Seasons of MacDowell" is a collection of four short films about the MacDowell Colony, commissioned to celebrate the artist colony's 100th anniversary. It plays Saturday at noon.

The festival has juried awards for everything from short comedy to Audience Choice, and many of the judges will be active throughout the festival. Diane Lake, for instance, a co-writer on "Frida" who is one of the screenplay judges, will give a presentation on the business of screenwriting next Sunday at 1:30 p.m.

The festival takes place at locations in Portsmouth, including the Music Hall, Hilton Garden Inn, Portsmouth Library, and Muddy River Smokehouse. For more information, call 603-647-6439 or visit nhfilmfestival.com.

CONVERSATIONS WITH: Boston University film studies professor Ray Carney, author of an armful of books on the director John Cassavetes, will present an evening of works about the Beats on Friday at 7 p.m. at the Boston University College of Communication, Room B-05. On tap is Cassavettes' "Shadows" and the film it premiered with in 1959, "Pull My Daisy," starring Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Alice Neel, and other Greenwich Village poets and artists. The event is in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Kerouac's "On the Road."

Film producer John McDermott will introduce "American Landing: Jimi Hendrix Live at Monterey" Friday at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. at the Regent Theatre in Arlington. The new documentary includes previously unreleased interviews with Hendrix and his entire set at the Monterey festival. There is also an 11:30 p.m. show. Call 781-646-4849 or visit regenttheatre.com.

"Winslow Homer: Society and Solitude" is the first feature documentary about the artist, who recorded pre - and post -Civil War life and did illustrations for the magazine Harper's Weekly. It plays twice next weekend at the Museum of Fine Arts: Saturday at 10:30 a.m., followed by a discussion with director Steven John Ross and MFA curator emeritus Roy Perkinson; and Sunday at 10:30 a.m., with a discussion with Ross and MFA curator emerita Sue Welsh Reed.

And today at noon, psychoanalyst Steven Cooper will be at the MFA to lead a discussion of "Dans Paris," about a young man's retreat into the belly of his family after his breakup with a girl.

SCREENINGS OF NOTE: The Brattle Theatre hosts "The Bride of Frankenstein" for free on Saturday at 11 a.m. as part of its continuing "Elements of Cinema" series highlighting classic movies (617-876-6837 and brattlefilm.org).

Also at the Brattle this week, from Thursday through the following Monday, is the fifth annual Boston Fantastic Film Festival. It features horror works that are cutting-edge - figuratively and literally - and some just plain weird stuff, such as the Hungarian animated film "The District," described by the Seattle International Film Festival as "an Eastern European 'South Park.' "

And a series on director Michael Haneke opens this week, with a program that includes "Cache" on Thursday at 7:45 p.m. and "The Piano Teacher" on Friday at 7:45 p.m., both at the MFA. The program continues through early November and includes screenings later this month at the Harvard Film Archive. Haneke will be at the MFA to discuss his films after a showing of "The Rebellion" on Oct. 18, and at the HFA for a similar discussion on Oct. 19.

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