Fested interest

At the movies these days, it’s tempting to figure there just aren’t many options. But don’t lose hope. All over the country and here in Sacto land, film festivals have in recent years become more numerous and more specialized, speaking up for every moviemaking muse who’d rather not move into the multiplex. It’s a mixed bag—which can be a good thing.

The sixth annual A Place Called Sacramento (Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Crest Theatre, 1015 K Street, $10, www.thecrest.com) incubates our homegrown film scene by challenging area screenwriters to write family-friendly shorts about their varied experiences of local life. The result: a shared sense of place, and perhaps a redress of some misconceptions, as in, for example, The Visitors, when a young woman moves downtown from Rocklin and must reassure her concerned mother, “Oak Park isn’t as bad as it seems. Besides, we’re not in Oak Park. We’re near it.”

Wonder what dear old Mom might make of the Sacramento International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (Wednesday, October 5, through Sunday, October 9; also at the Crest; $9 per night; www.siglff.org), whose worldly fare includes such provocative titles as Billy’s Dad is a Fudge Packer, In My Shoes: Stories of Youth with LGBT Parents and Hung, in which a magic potion allows five lesbians to understand that membership has its privileges.

Too narrowly focused for you? Hold out for the fifth Nevada City Film Festival (October 7-10, various locations, $7 per program, http://nevadacityfilmfestival.com), whose ecclectic offerings run the gamut from the satirical The Santa Claus Happy Tyme Show to the sobering The Drugging of Our Children. What better way to cap off a movie bender?