Their names don’t start with “Telluride,” “Aspen,” “Boulder” or “Starz,” but Colorado annually hosts more than 50 film festivals that slowly are gaining a toehold among Square State cinephiles.
Autumn — the post-summer and pre-skiing period known as shoulder season in tourism industry lexicon — and spring tend to be popular times for hosting film festivals. And in this persistently lean economy, festival tickets are a good bargain.
Indigenous Film & Arts Festival
Oct. 13-18 at various venues in Denver and Aurora; 303-744-9686, . Opening- and closing-night films are free.
Feature movies and documentaries that focus on issues, ideas and perceptions from an indigenous filmmaker’s point of view. The films range from “Barking Water,” a serenely paced story about redemption through a final road trip, and the highly stylized “4 Wheel War Pony,” making the case for skateboards as steeds, to the documentary “Little Caughnawaga: To Brooklyn and Back,” about the Native Americans who built Manhattan’s skyscrapers.
Steamboat Mountain Film Festival
Oct. 23 and 24, Colorado Mountain College, 1330 Bob Adams Drive, and Steamboat Grand Ballroom, 2300 Mt. Werner Circle 9, Steamboat Springs; 970-870-9676
Outdoor extreme-adventure movies for adrenaline junkies. Feature-length movies include TGR’s “Re-Session” and Standard Film’s “Black Winter,” plus works from Colorado filmmakers including Kerry Lofy, whose “Chronicles of Gnar” was among the three top- rated such films in 2008. Previous years’ submissions include the wacky Telluride short “Solilochairliftquist,” and the unnerving helmet-cam footage of an avalanche-trapped skier near Haines, Alaska.
Colorado Environmental Film Festival
Nov. 5-7, American Mountaineering Center, 710 10th St., Golden; 303-273-9527
Environmental niche films take center stage here, with some lighthearted movies alongside the gloomy ones. “Tapped,” a documentary examining access to clean drinking water, makes its Front Range premiere at this year’s festival. Among the 33 remaining films: Lynne Cherry’s “Young Voices on Climate Change”; “Gimme a Hug,” about sharks; and “What’s the Economy for Anyway,” by the director of “Affluenza.”
Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival
Nov. 6-8, Armstrong Theater and Cornerstone Arts Center, Colorado College, Colorado Springs; 719-226-0450, .
This established forum includes films about men, including “Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie,” about the philanthropic free spirit who emcee’d Woodstock, and became a music-industry insider. Other films include “The Kinda Sutra,” Oscar winner Jessica Yu’s wry documentary about adolescent impressions and misconceptions of love and sex; “Sister Wife” about a polygamous marriage; and “Mine” about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Denver School of the Arts student film festival
7-9 p.m. Dec. 10 and 11, Denver School of the Arts, 7111 Montview Blvd.; 720-424-1773
Animated and live-action movies and documentaries by adolescent Colorado filmmakers. The $10 pass includes pizza and soft drinks.
