Special to The T&D

For the second consecutive year, the I.P. Stanback Museum and Planetarium at South Carolina State University will bring independent films and filmmakers to the Orangeburg community to screen their films.

This year's Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers will be held at the newly renovated museum and planetarium.

The Southern Circuit, produced by the Southern Arts Federation, provides independent filmmakers with the opportunity to travel to communities across the South, where they screen their films for local audiences and engage in post-screening conversations about their work. Produced without studio backing, many of these films would never be seen on a screen in this area of the country without Southern Circuit. This year, for the first time, there will be an additional short film opening each feature presentation, a selected "Short Circuit."

The festival features a variety of films throughout the 2007-2008 academic year. All screenings will be held on Sundays at 5 p.m. in the planetarium. The screenings are free, and moviegoers will have the opportunity to speak with the filmmakers.

Space is limited, and reservations are encouraged. To make reservations, or to receive additional information, call 803-536-7174.

2007-2008 Southern Circuit film schedule:

Sept. 16 -- "The Short Films of Roger Beebe: Documents, Experiments & Wisecracks" by Roger Beebe -- Roger Beebe's short experimental films vary widely in form, medium and tone, but what they share is an interest in using experimental forms to think about some aspect of our contemporary world.

Opening Short: "Mr. Extion" by Griffin Hood and Barry Battles -- "Mr. Extion" is a fiction work in which two life-long friends and aspiring filmmakers find that developing an original idea, with no budget, is hard to pull off -- especially down South. Through the span of a day, the two reveal their true feelings on film, stereotypes, race and each other.

Oct. 21 -- "Third Ward, TX" by Andrew Garrison -- A guerilla art project in inner city Houston becomes a successful, long-term experiment in public art, housing and personal transformation -- Project Row Houses. "Third Ward, TX" explores how this tidy little row of born-again houses, glowing in the Texas sun, has become home to cutting-edge public art and a home-grown challenge to traditional notions of community development.

Opening Short: "The Language of Limbs: A Documentary of the Agrifolk Art Movement" by conceptual artist Eyekiss -- Jonathon Keats discovers the last true folk artists remaining -- 50 leyland cypress trees. Watch the drama unfold as these trees, outfitted with easels, paper and pencils, communicate through art … seriously.

Nov. 11 -- "Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea" by Christopher Metzler -- Once known as the "California Riviera," the Salton Sea is now called one of America's worst ecological disasters: a fetid, stagnant, salty lake, coughing up dead fish and birds by the thousands. Yet a few hardy eccentrics hang on to hope, and through their perceptions and misperceptions, the strange history and unexpected beauty of the Salton Sea is revealed.

Opening Short: "An Abstraction of the Chronology of Will" by Ben Collins and Kevin Phillips -- In this fiction film, William Porten is nothing short of apathetic and despondent after a break-up with his girlfriend. He joins the military, becomes a special operative and lives with a sustained note of danger until being faced with a firing squad in the middle of the desert.

Feb. 3 -- "Apparition of the Eternal Church" by Paul Festa -- In Paul Festa's award-winning first film, "Apparition of the Eternal Church," 31 artists describe what they hear while listening on headphones to Oliver Messiaen's monumental organ work of the same name. Faced with the challenge of putting Messiaen's apocalyptic music into words, listeners tell a story as erotic as it is sacred, and as hilarious as it is harrowing.

Opening Short: "Dick-George, Tenn-Tom" by Gideon Kennedy -- In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon visited Mobile, Ala., for 104 minutes, during which time he shook 100 feet of hands, lost a cuff link and shared a stage with his biggest political rival, Gov. George Wallace. "Dick-George, Tenn-Tom" is a sardonic look at their rivalry, the creation of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and the attempt on Wallace's life less than a year later.

March 16 -- "Kamp Katrina" by David Redmon -- A woman converts her backyard into a tent city in which 10 displaced people live for six months. She provides construction jobs and basic resources to help rebuild the city. The situation goes violently awry, and she is confronted with an array of abuses amidst a broken city.

Opening Short: "Tour of Homes" by Penny Brice -- Once described as the southern belle with a dirty face, Savannah is a city of contradictions, primarily between the haves and have-nots. "Tour of Homes" provides an alternative tour to the ones that cart tourists through the affluent environment of historic downtown Savannah.

April 27 -- "Willow Garden" by Jim Haverkamp -- Shot in an expressionistic, film-noir style, Willow Garden tells the backstory of one of America's strangest murder ballads in which a young man must decide whether to follow his heart or his father's twisted advice.

Opening Short: "Moth to Light" by Elizabeth Strickler -- Through a dark and tense atmosphere twists the horrific coming of age of Muriel. Caught between the domestic world of her mother and a dark and luring force in the garden, she contemplates what to do with the baby her mother dotes on and whose origins are unknown.

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