The 41 North Film Festival will return to Houghton this weekend. The free annual film festival is presented by the College of Sciences and Arts, Department of Humanities and Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Michigan Tech University.

This year begins at 5 p.m. today with a shorts program titled Animated Encounters. The festival will end with a showing of 32 Sounds at 7 p.m. Sunday.

The festival includes a variety of shorts, documentary and feature films, most of which have struck chords this festival season and have generated considerable awards buzz.

Dr. Erin Smith is the Director of the Humanities Digital Media Zone and a professor in Digital Media and Cinema and the Humanities at Michigan Tech. A founding member of the festival at its inception as Northern Lights Film Festival in 2005, Dr. Smith has helped curate a festival that reaches many corners of interest and engagement across the medium, while providing a unique viewing experience to the Copper Country.

The festival has always been free and open to the Michigan Tech campus and the community at large.

“It’s always had the community approach, it was started because it seemed like a good idea to bring these kinds of films to the community and give students the opportunity to share the experience of watching them with audiences that are not necessarily just like them,” Smith said.

This year’s festival offers 25 films, mostly documentaries that engage with current areas of contemporary discussion. As well, several events, featured speakers or panels to follow the films and engage the community in discussion, Smith said this is foundational to the festival.

“I feel increasingly committed to creating opportunities for people to watch films together and especially films that challenge us to think about things that are happening in our world today. There’s a lot of content now streaming and people can watch things at home, but that really doesn’t do the same kind of thing that watching films on a big screen with a lot of people and having an opportunity to discuss them afterwards or to hear panelists or guests that we bring to the festival talk about the work, really changes what they mean and what you learn from them.”

Featured panels will follow “Elephant 6 Recording Co.,” a documentary about a music collective, and features current MTU Assistant professor of Mathematical sciences and co-founder of the Elephant 6 Recording Co. Robert Schneider and executive producer Daniel Efram. Following the screening, there will also be an after party, featuring MTU alumni in the rock group Liquid Mike, in the Rozsa lobby.

Other panels include discussions with filmmaker David Ruck and faculty from Great Lakes Research Center following the screening of “The Erie Situation,” a documentary detailing the growing concern of toxic algae.

“I think is going to be very interesting to the community, because living up here we all care about the Great Lakes and our lake, and it’s really an important film to look at what has happened in another Great Lake and how we can continue to protect ours and our environment in general,” Smith said.

“Another Body” (Sunday at 3:30 p.m.), a documentary about deep fake technology and sexual harassment, and “Timebomb Y2K” (Thursday at 7 p.m.) about the millennium computer bug that sparked fear worldwide will also feature discussions post-screening.

“We have people from different departments on campus who are going to lend their expertise to thinking back on Y2K and thinking ahead to our future with technology and also sorting through the complexities of what’s happening with technology today,” Smith said. “The fact that we have so many great, smart people on our campus to put into conversation with these films I think is a really special thing about our festival.”

The selection of films is driven by Smith who attends film festivals each spring and follows releases throughout the year, while also keeping tabs on filmmakers of interest, such as Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine whose film “Boys State” was featured last year.

This year, their film “The Mission” (Saturday at 4 p.m.) details the story of John Chau, a young man who lost his life attempting to contact a remote indigenous population.

Smith said while the film may be challenging to watch in terms of its content, it will provide an opportunity for discussion that enriches attendees’ experiences.

“I think people will be having different reactions to that film, and when we have a chance to discuss it afterwards, there will be a chance to listen and realize that I thought this way but you thought that way,” Smith added. “So much of our content today is mediated through algorithms that feed us only things that agree with us, picking thing after thing that reinforces what we already think we know. Hopefully, there are opportunities to break that down a little bit in the situation like the one we provide at the festival.”

A children’s feature is something new to the festival. “Marcel the Shell with Shoes on” (Sunday at 12:30 p.m.) is a narrative film that uses documentary storytelling and stop motion animation. After the film, a stop motion animation demonstration will be presented by Ian Raymond, an adjunct assistant teaching professor of photography who has worked professionally in stop motion animation.

“I’ve always been so lucky. We can’t have tons of people here like big film festivals do, but there’s an amazing amount of talented, interesting people who end up here,” Smith said, “and so I was thinking about a lot of this because Ian’s here, and so I started thinking for shorts, and then I thought oh we could do a feature and ‘Marcel’ would be perfect, because it also has that documentary story to it.”

The collaboration of many people is required to put the festival together and provide a unique experience for the community.

“The people are giving their time to be on the panels, the Rozsa staff, my department, people who work with me, our volunteer coordinator Allison Neely. There are a lot of people who make this thing happen and I’m so grateful for all of them,” Smith said.

While there are many opportunities to see films this weekend, and a good group of regular attendees who manage to view all of them, a first-time festivalgoer might be intimidated by the scope of opportunities or not be sure how best to navigate their experience. Smith recommends researching the films at their website: here to find one that suits a particular interest and is appropriate for their tastes.

“But for those people who are just testing it out I like to recommend that you go to one film that you’re pretty sure you’re interested in,” Smith suggested, “and then you pick another film that you don’t know anything about.”

The 41 North Film Festival is an opportunity to link the community and the campus of Michigan Tech and connect departments, experts and visual storytellers to discussions relevant to our world today.

“It’s free, it can’t hurt you to try it,” Smith said, “and hopefully people who have the experience keep coming back.”