Jun 10, 2005  |  By: BRIAN MOYLAN  | COMMENTS     

For the third consecutive year, the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel are joining forces to sponsor Silverdocs, a five-day festival that highlights documentary filmmaking.

This year, after programmers reviewed more than1,300 submissions and trolled the international film festival circuit, they came up with nearly 90 documentaries, which are scheduled to be screened in Silver Spring, Md., from June 13 to June 19.

There are more gay-themed films than ever before.

“To be honest, it’s mostly a happy accident,” says festival director Patricia Finneran of the increase in films with gay content. “I think we’re always going to have films that deal with gay issues and are from gay filmmakers, because there are so many wonderful films that come from those entities.”

From opening night on Tuesday, June 14, with a campy feature on “Midnight Movies,” to the spectacular experimental documentary “The Joy of Life,” on Sunday, June 19, and “James Dean: Forever Young” on closing night, there are plenty of reasons to head to Silver Spring next week.

All documentaries are to be screened at the AFI Silver Theater, 8633 Colesville Road in Silver Spring. Individual tickets are $9, unless otherwise noted. Here are some options:

“Midnight Movies: From the Margins to the Mainstream” (Tuesday, June 14, 7 p.m., $45; Sunday, June 19, at 12:45 p.m.; 88 minutes.): Director Stuart Samuels seems to understand that the world of midnight movies always had a gay connection.

Making its North American debut, he looks at movies like the gay classics “Pink Flamingos” and the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” in an attempt to explain not only how they were made, but also what made them hits. The answer is the pot-smoking, free-wheeling, experimental ‘70s and people on the fringe of society — like hippies and gays — finally getting access to venues that celebrated and catered to a lifestyle that wasn’t necessarily embraced by society at large.

That led to the success of movies like “El Topo,” “The Harder They Come” and “Eraserhead.” Chock full of interviews with both filmmakers, including the fabulous John Waters of Baltimore, and cinema managers, even the biggest film buffs will learn a bit more about these cult classics.

After the screening on opening night, “Good Morning America’s” Joel Siegel is scheduled to talk to director Samuels about his movie and midnight movies, followed by a reception with Siegel, Samuels and some of the directors featured in the documentary.

“Irene Williams: Queen of Lincoln Road” (Wednesday, June 15, at 9 p.m.; 23 minutes): Not only does the “queen” in the title refer to Williams, a Miami eccentric, but also to her best friend, gay director Eric Smith. A self-proclaimed “hag fag,” a gay man who loves eccentric old women, Smith befriends Williams after a chance encounter on the street and begins to document their friendship.

The result is a 30-minute salute to Williams, who draws looks, comments and admirers with her garish outfits as she walks each day from her house at one end of Lincoln Road to her office at the other end. She is a self-employed public stenographer.

Because no store carries the fashions she craves, Williams makes all her own outfits, bags and hats (often out of strange material like bath mats). While these crazy creations take center stage, the real attraction here is the unlikely, but deep connection between two very different people.

This film follows a screening of “Stan Kann: The Happiest Man in the World,” a 67-minute feature about the “Tonight Show” regular during the ’60s who also was an antique vacuum collector and celebrated theater organist. Though the film doesn’t delve into his personal life, Kann never married and has a certain offbeat charm that gay audiences should be drawn to.

“Small Town Secrets” (Shorts Program 1: Wednesday, June 15, 12:30 p.m.; Thursday, June 16, 9:30 p.m.; 7 minutes): This film may be brief, but it is certainly memorable. Lesbian filmmaker Katherine Leggett talks about growing up as a child of divorced parents in a small midwestern town.

Between haunting landscapes from the town and old family movies, she interviews both of her parents using Web cams, which allows her to simultaneously show herself and the respective parent talking on a computer screen. This new technique shows ...