ATHENS — It’s curtain call time for downtown Athens.

The city is kicking off its first film festival with a premiere party Friday and the festival Saturday. The Southern Shorts Film Festival premiere party will be at the Club House Cafe on the square, where festival winners will mingle with movie lovers and celebrate with Southern delights like barbecue and MoonPies. Tickets are $35 and are available by calling 656-6588 or 278-6436.

On Saturday, the public can get an all-day pass for $8 at Athens State University’s McCandless Hall. The all-day event will include children’s films, documentaries and a special showing of a feature film scheduled to air later on PBS. The feature is “The Way We Get By,” which won’t air nationwide until Veterans Day.

Greeting soldiers

The film follows a group of senior citizens who go daily to the airport to greet military personnel returning from the Middle East and thank them for their service. The movie also follows the seniors’ own issues of failing health, depression and debt.

Another special feature the festival will showcase is “A Genesis Found,” filmed completely in Alabama by Lee Fanning and Ben Stark, both of Tuscaloosa. The sci-fi thriller will be screened at 3:05 p.m.

The film is set in 1938 during an excavation at Moundville Archaeological Park. A Civilian Conservation Corp cadet finds and hides a skeleton that is not animal or human. He reveals the discovery decades later as proof it’s an extraterrestrial, which ruins his career. Thirty years later, his grandson, an anthropology student at The University of Alabama, is forced to come to terms with his grandfather’s past.

The Spirit of Athens and Art On The Square are sponsoring the festival to highlight the historic and picturesque attributes of Athens and promote filmmaking in the area. That effort coincides with plans for Calhoun Community College and Athens State to offer a fine arts degree program and partner with Decatur and Morgan County on a fine arts center in downtown Decatur.

Filmmaking camp

In June, Athens hosted a filmmaking camp for students in grades 7-12 to promote the festival and local talent. One of the organizers, Diane Lehr, said the camp and festival could encourage future students who train in the college program to make films in Limestone County. Proceeds from the festival will fund downtown revitalization programs and art camps for children.

Organizer Trisha Black said the festival also is a chance for movie lovers to see what local talent the area already offers. For example, the documentary “Collecting Choloe”, directed by Brad Thompson of Athens, won the best independent short film award. The film, set in the 1970s, depicts a young girl’s discovery that something is odd about the locals in the town where she has stopped for gas.

Black said the festival will screen each submission, including the winning entries. The special feature “The Way We Get By” will play at 6:30 p.m.

“Be one of the first to see this film and support events in the local community,” Black said. “Only selected festivals will be showing ‘The Way We Get By’, so see it in Athens first. This is what independent filmmaking is all about.”

Southern Shorts Film Festival Schedule

The festival will be Saturday at Athens State University’s McCandless Hall from noon to 10 p.m. Cost is $8 and tickets are available at the door. Children get in free from noon to 2 p.m.

Here are highlights of the day’s schedule: