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Nantucket, Notre Dame, Toontown, and Providence as Toontown

Courtesy of the Nantucket Film Festival

Day trippers wanting to check out the final days of the 24th annual Nantucket Film Festival, which ends June 24, will still find plenty of films and special guests. Screenwriter and producer Leslie Dixon, whose credits include “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Freaky Friday,” and “Outrageous Fortune,” is the recipient of this years’s Screenwriters Tribute Award. On June 23, she joins actress Ilana Levin for “Little Known Facts,” a live podcast, at 3 p.m. at the Dreamland Legacy Lounge.

Among the notable screenings on June 23 are “Official Secrets” (9:30 a.m., Dreamland Main), director Gavin Hood’s dramatization of the based-on-fact story of whistleblower Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), who exposed information about US efforts to manipulate the UN Security Council’s sanctioning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Director Michael Tyburski will be in attendance with his feature debut, “The Sound of Silence” (12:15 p.m., Dreamland Main) about a self-taught scientist (Peter Sarsgaard) seeking academic recognition for his urban sound studies while dealing with a challenging new client (Rashida Jones). In “Ophelia” (3 p.m., Dreamland Studio), director Claire McCarthy shifts the focus from Hamlet to his namesake love interest. (Daisy Ridley). Co-writers-directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz and actor Zack Gottsagen will be on hand with the Mark Twain-inspired “The Peanut Butter Falcon” (2:45 p.m., Dreamland Main) about a young man with Down syndrome who joins a charismatic fugitive on an adventure.

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Sameh Zoabi’s satire “Tel Aviv on Fire” (5:30 p.m., Dreamland Studio) is about a Palestinian soap opera writer and his fraught relationship with an Israeli checkpoint guard. The guard tries to influence the plot of the show, “Tel Aviv on Fire.” Alex Thompson’s “Saint Frances” (6:30 p.m., White Elephant) stars the film’s screenwriter, Kelly O’Sullivan, as a nanny whose bond with her 6-year-old charge, Frances, opens her eyes to her own possibilities. Writer-director Annabelle Attanasio will be in attendance for her debut feature, “Mickey and the Bear” (9 p.m., White Elephant), about a Montana teenager forced since her mother’s death to take on adult responsibilities, including caring for her father, an Iraq War veteran struggling with PTSD and opioid addiction. The festival presents Best of Fest screenings on June 24, 9:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.

Go to www.nantucketfilmfestival.org.

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Notre Dame remembered

Peter Krasinski improvises a live score to the silent masterpiece “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923), starring Lon Chaney as Quasimodo. The screening takes place July 3 at 7:30 p.m. at Old South Church, in Copley Square. Krasinski will be playing the church’s 1921 Skinner pipe organ. Proceeds from the event will go to restoration of the great organ and choir organ of Notre Dame cathedral, in Paris, which were damaged by the fire on April 15. Admission is $10 for the general public; children under 12 will be admitted free.

Go to www.krasinski.org.

Roger that

Gary K. Wolf’s 1981 novel, “Who Censored Roger Rabbit?,” was the basis for Robert Zemeckis’s 1988 film classic, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” Bob Hoskins stars as a down-on-his-luck private eye hired to investigate Jessica Rabbit (Kathleen Turner), the sultry wife of fellow animated star Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer). Wolf will be on hand to introduce the screening, on 35mm film, as the kick off to the Somerville Theatre’s Play It Cool series on June 26, at 7:30 p.m. After the screening, Wolf will sign copies of the new paperback edition, the first since 1981, of “Who Censored Roger Rabbit?” and his other “Roger Rabbit” books.

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Go to www.somervilletheatre.com.

Animated women

The 11th edition of Womanimation!, a one-day festival of international animated short films by women, returns to Rhode Island on June 29 for three showings: at 4 p.m., 6 p.m., and 8 p.m. It takes place at AS220, 115 Empire St., Providence. The program’s 12 short films come from 11 countries. Most are US or world premieres. The movies were drawn from hundreds of submissions from around the globe. Various styles of animation are represented, from stop motion to computer animation to traditional hand drawing. Audiences vote for their favorite films, and festival organizers will be on hand throughout the screenings.

Go to www.mergingarts.org.


Loren King can be reached at loren.king@comcast.net.