Beyond the blockbusters, there are screens full of surprises

Summertime is as big a season for alternative cinema as it is for blockbuster pictures. The most widely anticipated event is the Los Angeles Film Festival, which will mark its 10th anniversary by presenting 195 films, including 83 features from 31 countries.

The festival, June 17 to 26 at various venues, has come a long way since its inception as a weekend event at Raleigh Studios but has striven to keep its edge.

It will open with Zach Braff’s “Garden State,” in which Braff plays a young man whose life changes when he returns to his New Jersey hometown. The festival’s centerpiece will be Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunset,” a sequel to “Before Sunrise.” In the 1995 film, two strangers (Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy) meet by chance in Vienna and enjoy a night of love; now, nine years later in Paris, they are about to cross paths again. Closing the event will be “The Clearing,” in which Robert Redford and Helen Mirren play a couple who seem to have lived the American dream -- until the husband is kidnapped.

Outfest

The year’s splashiest and most venturesome festival is traditionally Outfest, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. In its 22nd year, it is L.A.’s oldest and largest continuous film festival and has increasingly attracted a crossover audience.

From a record number of more than 700 submissions, the festival has selected 202 films for screening July 8 to 19 at the Directors Guild and other venues. A highlight will be a horror series that includes a retrospective screening of “The Hunger,” a survey of the history of gay imagery in horror films, a program of new shorts and three features: “Hellbent,” “Make a Wish” and “The Sisterhood.” A key panel discussion will bring together gay filmmakers who specialize in straight teen films.

Black film festival

In its sixth year, the Hollywood Black Film Festival will present 77 films at the Harmony Gold Preview House and hold a job fair and a marketplace June 22 to 27 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Among the key features will be Michael Tolajian’s “Bought & Sold,” described as a Horatio Alger comedy set in Jersey City that centers on a young man (Rafael Sardina) who tries a shortcut to his dream of becoming a DJ; and director Ryan Harper’s “30 Miles,” in which a Good Samaritan (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) picks up a manipulative hitchhiker (Rusty Gray).

Latino film festival

Yet another major festival, the Latino International Film Festival, will be held at several sites July 16 to 25 and typically features important films from the U.S., Spain, Portugal and Central and South America. A Cantinflas Film Festival will take place Sept. 1 to 3 at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre and will include 1956’s “Around the World in 80 Days,” in which Cantinflas starred with David Niven.

Preservation series

This summer will be great for vintage-film fans too. The UCLA Film and Television Archive’s Festival of Preservation will present restorations of Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 antiwar classic “Paths of Glory,” starring Kirk Douglas, and Mack Sennett’s 1914 “Tillie’s Punctured Romance,” starring Charlie Chaplin and regarded as the first feature-length comedy. The festival takes place July 22 to Aug. 1 primarily at Melnitz Hall’s James Bridges Theater. The other big event for fans of silent pictures and early talkies is Cinecon, which marks its 40th annual convention Sept. 3-6 with screenings of restored rarities, special guests and a memorabilia show.

Also celebrating old movies, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ ongoing “Great to Be Nominated” series continues through Aug. 16, with films that received the most nominations without winning the best picture award. The Silent Society of Hollywood Heritage’s 17th annual Silents Under the Stars will present Buster Keaton’s “Our Hospitality” (1923) on July 18 and Cecil B. DeMille’s “Saturday Night” (1922) on Aug. 15 at the Paramount Ranch in Agoura. The Silent Society will also present King Vidor’s classic comedy “Show People” (1928) at Castle Green in Pasadena on June 20. Meanwhile, the Catalina Island Museum Society will screen Allan Dwan’s “The Iron Mask” (1929), with Douglas Fairbanks, on June 26 at the Avalon Theater.

Repertory series

Major repertory venues also will be busy. To launch the season, the American Cinematheque will present “Cinema Italian Style: New Films From Italy,” June 3 to 13; the UCLA Film Archive screens “Bangkok: Cinema City,” a program of recent Thai films, June 4 to 9; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will show “Dreaming Cinema: The Complete Bernardo Bertolucci,” July 16 to Aug. 14; and REDCAT at Disney Hall will be one of several sites for Dance Camera West, an annual celebration of dance on film, June 4 to 26.

Also arriving in early June is the Goethe Institut’s popular “Blockbusters” series, now in its sixth year. The series, Tuesdays from June 8 to July 20, presents both the best and the most popular recent German films.