WEEKLY VOLCANO: YOUR DAILY GUIDE TO THE TACOMA FILM FESTIVAL >>>

The 2009 Tacoma Film Festival runs through Oct. 8 at seven Tacoma venues. Ticket prices and venue addresses are here.

Saturday, Feb. 3
10:30 a.m., Tacoma Art Museum: Blue Tarp City, Beyond Greenaway: The Legacy

12 p.m., Grand Cinema: Family Shorts
Fan Mail, Perchance to Dream, Tooth Fairy, A Fanpire Story, Plunge, In Frame, Ogopogo, Broken Road, Goalball, Small Change   

12:45 p.m., Tacoma Art Museum: Sweet Crude

Sweet Crude
Directed by Sandy Cioffi
Documentary (90 min)
Filmmaker in attendance
Seattle-based filmmaker Sandy Cioffi spent time in a Nigerian prison to make Sweet Crude, a film about the horrors surrounding the oil industry operating on the Niger Delta. There, citizens of an oil-rich nation struggle to eat in a land that can no longer support them. Pollution, degradation of traditional livelihoods, lack of drinkable water and electricity and more has spawned a militant resistance in Nigeria as traditional modes of protest fail again and again. This film is about what happens next.

2 p.m., Grand Cinema: Mountains Don’t Care, but We Do!, Shipyard       

2 p.m., Tacoma School of the Arts: Some International Flavor, Closed Zone, Red, Yellow & Blue, Hungry God, The Barber of Bangalore, Letters in the Sand, Old City, March Point

2:45 p.m., Tacoma Art Museum: Documentary Shorts
Homeless in Hollywood, Dear Dad, It’s in the P-I, Daffodil Dreams, The Herd, Songs from the Tundra, Canoe Pulling: A Lummi Way of Life, 12 Stones Inspired   

4:15 p.m., Grand Cinema: Red Gold, Gates of the Arctic: Alaska’s Brooks Range

4:15 p.m., Tacoma School of the Arts: Comedy Shorts #2
Oh Promise Me, Donation, Instead of Abracadabra, War of the Grandmas, Between Night, The Line, Weekend Warriors

5:30 p.m., First United Methodist Church of Tacoma: Athena, House of Numbers

6:30 p.m., Grand Cinema: Spooner
Spooner
Directed by Drake Doremus
Feature Narrative Comedy (89 min.)
Meet Drake Doremus and screenwriter Lindsay Stidham after the screening
Herman Spooner (Matthew Lillard) is a used car salesman who still lives at home with his parents. Spooner is fairly set in his unfulfilling routine, but turning 30 marks a hard deadline set by his mom and dad to get a place of his own. To top it off, Spooner’s boss is putting on the pressure to bring in some numbers, or face the chopping block. Headed for one of the worst days of his life, Spooner meets the girl of his dreams, Rose (Nora Zehetner). Forgoing all other priorities, Spooner is now working on winning her heart, but on their perfect date, she breaks the news that she is about to leave for the Philippines. How far will Spooner go to keep Rose in town and show her he really knows how to spoon?

6:45 p.m.: Tacoma School of the Arts: In Another Life, How I Got Lost   

7:45 p.m., First United Methodist Church of Tacoma: Certain Adverse Events, Health, Money and Fear

8:45 p.m., Grand Cinema: Freeing Silvia Baraldini
Freeing Silvia Baraldini
Directed by Margo Pelletier and Lisa Thomas
Documentary (102 min) â€" NW Film, Contains some dialogue in Italian with English subtitles, 
Filmmakers in attendance
This documentary, directed by a former Grand Cinema projectionist, follows the life of Silvia Baraldini, a political activist who was arrested by the FBI and sentenced to 43 years in prison after 15 years of radical activism. This film won for Most Principled film at the 2009 Seattle True International Film Festival.

9:00 p.m., Tacoma School of the Arts: Nodutgang, The War Boys

LINK: Tacoma Film Festival on Twitter

LINK: Tacoma Film Festival Web site

LINK: Full film descriptions

LINK: Weekly Volcano Tacoma Film Festival cover story