Films, and music, for days

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention this weekend’s Sacramento Film and Music Festival, most of which—from Thursday, August 12, through Sunday, August 15—will take place at the Crest Theatre, 1013 K Street. (The festival’s Monday “Ghost Light Theatre Festival” program is slated for viewing at the Veteran’s Memorial Theatre, 203 East 14th Street in Davis.) A full schedule of events can be found at www.sacfilm.com/schedule.html. (Also, see our interview with the film festival’s director, in this week’s 15 minutes, and read more about the Ghost Light festival in this week’s Theater section.)

The festival begins on Thursday night with the 8:30 p.m. screening of Down and Derby, a film by director Eric Hendershot. Friday’s program begins at 7 p.m. with Pledge of Allegiance Blues, a documentary by Lisa Seidenberg that follows Sacramento resident Michael Newdow in his quest to have the words “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s followed at 8:30 p.m. by Up for Grabs, a Michael Wranovics film about the fight over the baseball hit by Barry Bonds for his record-breaking 73rd home run in 2001. Five short films follow at 10:15 p.m.

At 10 a.m. on Saturday, the program kicks off with eight more short films, followed by director Layla Mashavu Sewell’s Cuzin Sista at 11 a.m. and Will Swenson’s Sons of Provo at 11:45 a.m. and then five more short films at 1:45 p.m. and five world-music-related shorts at 3:30 p.m. At 5 p.m. is a panel discussion on music in film, moderated by the Music Industry Consortium of Sacramento’s Scott Hervey and featuring Universal Music Publishing’s director of music licensing, Suzanne Moss, and Rights Workshop President Brooke Wentz.

For music fans, the Saturday-night program looks to be the most exciting. Beginning at 7 p.m., it includes performances by Sinclair, Larisa Bryski and Downboy, along with music videos featuring 8 Brown Eyes, Sticky Vikki & the Pinecones, !Akimbo, the Phantom Band, Bluez Cats, Acoustic Fuse, Nevada Backwards, Gooser, Looking Star, Nectar, Soul Taco, Matt McCord, Kontagiouz Soundz, Th’ Losin Streaks, Beat Chimps, Zero to Heaven, Low Flying Owls, Human Factor, Pebble Theory, PB of the C.U.F., ALW, Abandon Theory, Odame, the F-Bombs, Ben Luco and the Funky Divine, Adam Varona, the Needs, Paralyzed, Amityville Horror, Kent Holms Band and Las Pesadillas. A midnight short film series will follow.

At 10 a.m. Sunday, a series of three documentary short films will screen, followed by the world premiere of Danny Schechter’s documentary WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception at noon, Marylou Tebaldo-Bongiorno’s Little Kings at 2 p.m., and six more short films at 4 p.m. Monday’s program of six short films in Davis begins at 8 p.m. Individual screening admissions are $8; the Saturday-night music program is $10 to get in, and a festival event pass is $30.