Festival season is upon us

Last week's Independent Film Festival of Boston went off with a bang, with the festival's prizes announced midway through the festivities: the narrative grand jury prize went to Mike Akel's ''Chalk"; narrative special jury prize to Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's ''Brothers of the Head"; documentary grand jury prize to Lauren Greenfield's ''Thin"; and documentary special jury prize to Ian Inaba's ''American Blackout."

And now it's time to pull out the calendars and start making plans for the summer film festivals. If you coordinate things just right, you should be able to get to a festival nearly every weekend. To make things easy, we've divided everything into two groups: events happening in the city, and those toward the Cape and the Islands.

SUMMER EVENTS IN BOSTON: Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival, May 10-21, at the Museum of Fine Arts. There will be 23 documentary and feature works at this annual event, with visits by directors Samantha Farinella, Q. Allan Brocka, and others, as well as a panel discussion on May 21 on the state of queer cinema (617-267-9300 and www.mfa.org/film).

SOWA Film Festival, May 19-21, at the Thayer Street galleries on Harrison Avenue. This is the inaugural year for this event in the ''south of Washington" section of the South End. The festival's founders, who also run B Roll Films, describe the program as ''independent cabaret style filmmaking, art, and performance," primarily drawing from Boston and New England area filmmakers. The plan is to have directors in attendance, poetry readings, and ''other surprises" (617-699-9023 and www.sowafilmfestival.com).

Boston International Film Festival, June 7-11. Not to be confused with the Boston Film Festival, which is held each fall, this festival was founded by Dorchester resident Patrick Jerome four years ago. Its programming has focused on films from Africa, Europe, and Asia, with screenings in past years at the Hynes Convention Center, Boston Common Theatre, and other venues (781-935-0871 and www.bifilmfestival.com).

French Film Festival, July 6-23, at the Museum of Fine Arts. Last year's festival centerpiece was Jacques Audiard's ''The Beat That My Heart Skipped," which was one of Globe critic Ty Burr's top films for 2005. The festival also highlights emerging directors. (617-267-9300 and www.mfa.org/film).

Roxbury Film Festival, July 26-30, at Northeastern University, the MFA, and Massachusetts College of Art. Showcasing films written, directed, or produced by African-Americans, the festival goes out of its way on its website to note that it welcomes films by any filmmakers ''that illuminate stories about people of color. We are inclusive." Last year's award for emerging local filmmaker went to Thato Rantao Mwosa for ''Don't Tell Me You Love Me," and award for most original voice (New England filmmaker) went to Nisha Murickan for ''Maria" (www.roxburyfilmfestival.org).

CAPE COD,THE ISLANDS, AND BEYOND: Newport International Film Festival, June 6-11, in Newport, R.I. With Newport's mansions as a backdrop and movie stars stopping by, this is one of the more glamorous festivals. Last year's winners included Joshua Marston's ''Maria Full of Grace," and Harvard grad Nina Davenport's documentary ''Parallel Lines," about Americans' reactions to Sept. 11 (401-846-9100 and www.newportfilmfestival.com).

Provincetown International Film Festival, June 14-18. This is another of the glam events of the summer. Its highlight is the presentation of the annual ''Filmmaker on the Edge" award (past recipients have included directors Mary Harron, Jim Jarmusch, Todd Haynes, and John Waters). The festival has a new artistic director this year: Andrew Peterson, who most recently was manager of theater operations for the Sundance Film Festival. Former director Connie White will be focusing full time on her booking, distribution, and consulting company, Balcony Film, and joins the PIFF Advisory Board (508-487-3456 and www.ptownfilmfest.org).

Nantucket Film Festival, June 14-18. Among the highlights of this festival are the annual staged readings of screenplays still in progress, late-night storytelling (previous storytellers have included Jim Carrey, Jerry Stiller, Tina Fey, surfer Laird Hamilton, and Mos Def), and informal ''Morning Coffee With . . . " conversations with actors (212-708-1278 and www.nantucketfilmfestival.org).

Plymouth Independent Film Festival, July 20-23. Last year was this festival's debut year. Its highlight: free, outdoor waterfront screenings that brought out 3,000 people to see ''Jaws" and ''Citizen Kane" (508-801-2530 and www.plyfilmfest.org).

Woods Hole Film Festival, July 29-Aug. 5, in Woods Hole and Falmouth. This festival focuses on the work of emerging and New England Filmmakers and gives out a wide variety of awards. Last year, 51 directors attended, with the best of the festival award going to Bill Kern for ''Top of the World," about his trek in the Himalayas and encounters with Buddhist monks and a Russian climbing expedition (508-495-3456 and www.woodsholefilmfestival.com).

ARRIVEDERCI CLINTON: Clinton McClung, who has served as program director of the Coolidge Corner Theatre for the past seven years, is leaving his role. McClung has been a master at putting together enormously creative special events -- Found Footage Festivals, singalong nights, and the New England Animation Bash among them. He also curated the Allston Cinema Underground and kept a focus on serving, whenever possible, Boston's ''lunatic fringe market," as he once put it. (His goodbye party last night was scheduled to include -- fittingly -- a midnight screening of his favorite ''classic bad movies" and performance by goth honeys Black Cat Burlesque.) The 35-year-old will be moving to New York, and George Bragdon, McClung's assistant for the past year, will be moving into the role of program manager.

SCREENINGS OF NOTE: The Balagan Experimental Film & Video Series, always devoted to highlighting local avant-garde film and video makers, presents a program of recent works from eight filmmakers on Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the 250-seat room of the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Among the filmmakers who will be in attendance are Harvard professors Alfred Guzzetti and Lorelei Pepi, MIT lecturer Joe Gibbons, and RISD part-time faculty member Daniel Sousa (sense a pattern about how filmmakers make ends meet?). Also on the bill is work by Louise Bourque, who has a film in the current 2006 Whitney Biennial (617-734-2500 and www.coolidge.org/balagan/).

Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's 2005 film ''Three Times" will screen 11 times between May 3-21 at the Museum of Fine Arts. Hou's films can resemble coffee-table books as much as movies in the way that he allows the camera to sit -- and sit -- on still-life shots. While many people find that stillness interminable, many others love it and are passionate about the gentle and often plotless snapshots of life that he creates.

''There's probably no director working today who is as acclaimed and has less popular recognition than Mr. Hou," film critic Charles Taylor wrote in the New York Observer earlier this year. When the MFA announced the schedule for ''Three Times," Taylor e-mailed me this warning: ''You miss this at the peril of missing one of the most exquisite films from one of the greatest living filmmakers." (617-267-9300 and www.mfa.org/film).

CONVERSATION WITH: Paul Farmer, cofounder of Boston-based Partners in Health, and Brian Concannon, director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, will lead a discussion after the 7 p.m. Tuesday screening of Nicolas Rossier's 2005 documentary ''Aristide and the Endless Revolution" at the Museum of Fine Arts. The film also screens six more times through May 11 (617-267-9300 and www.mfa.org/film).

FOR FILMMAKERS: WGBH wants to help fund the production of short films -- four to seven minutes long -- for distribution to cellphones, PDAs, and television. The program is called ''6:55" and it works this way: Filmmakers send proposals for shorts to WGBH and its partner Open Media Network. The proposals and filmmakers' sample works will be posted online for other filmmakers to review and vote on. Boston Media Productions will commission three films, and filmmakers will receive $2,500 and editorial support from WGBH. (Note that WGBH will own the copyright to the films that get funded.) Deadline is May 26. Details, entry information, and other 6:55 shorts are online at wgbh.org/producingfortv.

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