The Langston Hughes African American Film Festival opens in Seattle on Saturday

The Langston Hughes African American Film Festival marks its fifth anniversary this year, unspooling Saturday through April 20 with 41 features, documentaries and short films. As always, notes festival curator Zola Mumford, it's a celebration of storytelling — and, this year, of many local filmmakers.

Actor/filmmaker donnie l. betts, who attended the festival last year with his Oscar Brown documentary "Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress," will be on hand opening night to introduce John Sayles' "Honeydripper." The film, which had a brief Seattle run earlier this year, is filled with music: Set in 1950 Alabama, it stars Danny Glover as a roadhouse owner planning a make-or-break concert. Betts, who plays a small role in "Honeydripper," will talk about the experience of making the film during a post-screening Q&A, followed by a reception with live jazz/blues music.

Closing night also will feature a special guest: Recently rediscovered African-American filmmaker Charles Burnett will visit the festival with a screening of his new film "Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation." Burnett's earlier films "Killer of Sheep" and "My Brother's Wedding" (from 1977 and 1983, respectively) have recently been restored and seen locally, including at the Port Townsend Film Festival last fall. "Namibia" focuses on Samuel Nujoma (Carl Lumbly), the young man who would become Namibia's first president and a key figure in its struggle for independence from South Africa.

The film, which screens in 35mm (a rarity for this festival, which generally screens on DVD), is a three-hour epic shown with an intermission, followed by a discussion with Burnett. "We're very excited to have Burnett here to talk about the experience of making the film," said Mumford. "The army in it is actually the army of Namibia. I think it'll be amazing to hear him describe his experiences, how the government worked with him to help him make the film because they wanted their story told in a way that they felt was accurate and from their perspective." Burnett also will present the festival's filmmaker awards (a first this year) at the closing reception.

And a number of local filmmakers will be on hand to present their work.

On Thursday at 7 p.m., Kirkland filmmaker Eddie Smith will host an evening of two of his short films, "Man II Man" and "Behind Closed Doors," followed by a Q&A. "He manages to do very tight, very coherent, thought-provoking stories in under half an hour," said Mumford. "To write a good short story and make it into a short film that's very focused, very tight, picks up from the beginning of the narrative and carries you through is not an easy thing to do."

Other local filmmakers include Seattle documentarian Shannon Gee, who will be present for her new film, "All Our Sons: Fallen Heroes of 9/11" (screening Sunday at 4:30). The film, about the 12 black firefighters who died at the World Trade Center, is narrated by Alfre Woodard. Seattle University faculty member Lonnie Renteria's documentary "Ebony Chunky Love," screening Sunday at 7 p.m., looks at comedian/radio personality Keith Price's life as a gay African-American comedian. Anastacia Tolbert and Annie Walsh's "Got Breast?," screening Friday, April 18, at 4 p.m., looks at the image of breasts in American culture.

Camano Island documentarian Michael Lienau's "Yokes and Chains" (Monday at 4:30 p.m.) relates the filmmaker's adventures as he traveled the world with his family, raising awareness of and apologizing for slavery. And Gilda Sheppard, a faculty member at The Evergreen State College, will be present with her short film "Women Together as One," about her experiences working with Liberian women refugees in West Africa. The film, screening Sunday at 2 p.m., was shown last year at the Cannes Film Festival.

This year's festival is dedicated to the late St. Clair Bourne (1943-2007), the documentary filmmaker and photographer who visited LHAAFF in 2006 and was a lifelong mentor to young filmmakers. Two of his films will be shown, both on Saturday: "The Black and the Green," his rarely screened 1982 documentary about the parallels between Northern Irish Catholics and African Americans in the civil-rights movement, and "A Great and Mighty Walk," about the African-American historian and scholar John Henrik Clarke.

Other special events in the festival include a Flash animation workshop (hosted by returning guest filmmakers Shawnee and Shawnelle Gibbs); a filmmaking workshop with Professor Alonzo Crawford of Howard University on the subject of "pedagogy of cinema"; and a collection of short films made by and for teenagers, showing after school on Wednesday.

Looking forward to the next five years, Mumford hoped the festival would be able to "offer increasing support and encouragement to local filmmakers, encouraging them to bring their best work and screen it, to communicate with audiences here. We want to have more workshops in the future, so that people get a chance to learn and share what they already know with others. ... We'd just like to try and keep building on what we've established, and to keep reaching out to audiences. We keep looking for strong narrative stories that are meaningful to people on many levels."

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725

or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com