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So, let's see... it's been at least a few days since a new local film series or festival has started up. I think we're about ready for a new cycle. The ever-agreeable Austin Film Society (AFS) seems to think so too. Next week begins the group's new 10-part series: A Survey of the American Avant Garde Cinema. The survey covers the last 50 years of the American "personal" film movement, a type of filmmaking that is best described by its goals of self-expression and artistic vision. Beyond that, the films represent all types: narrative, abstract, expressionistic, formal experiments, and animation. This comprehensive survey is the kind of amazing (and free) feat that the AFS produces on a regular basis. The screenings will take place every Tuesday at 7pm in the Texas Union Theater, beginning this Tuesday and continuing through Dec. 16. The first screening on Oct. 14, "1940s: The Beginnings," includes Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (which is essential viewing -- if you don't know Meshes, you don't know cinema... period); Early Abstractions by Harry Smith; Adventures of Jimmy by James Broughton; The Lead Shoes by Sidney Peterson; and Fireworks, young Kenneth Anger's seminal expression of gay iconography. Future screenings include Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man, and works by Marie Menken, Bruce Connor, Robert Frank, George Kuchar, Shirley Clarke, and many more...

Funhouse Cinema, hosted by Bill Daniel, continues on Monday, Oct. 13, 8 & 10:30pm at the Ritz Lounge. This week's collection is titled "Industrialand" and includes weird industrial and educational films from the 1930s-70s...

Reel Women is hosting a screening of short films and video works contributed by women active in the local scene on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 8 & 10pm, at the Ritz Lounge. Admission to the fundraiser is $3 and is co-sponsored by the Cinemaker Coop. The following evening, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 7:30pm, at Movements Gallery, will be Reel Women's regular monthly meeting. The scheduled speaker is Elizabeth Peters of UT and the Austin Film Society, who will address the ever-pertinent topic of fundraising. Call 280-8706 for more info...

Women & Their Work and the Austin Film Society are hosting a visit from groundbreaking animator Suzan Pitt on Thursday, Oct. 16, 6:30-8:30pm at the Dobie Theatre. Pitt will be speaking and screening two animated works, Asparagus and Joy Street and a reception at Women & Their Work Gallery will follow...

New York underground filmmaker Joe Christ will screen some of his infamous short films Thursday, Oct. 16, 9pm, at the Back Room (2015 E. Riverside). Two of the former Dallas musician's films that will be showing during this tour include Is It Snuff? You Decide! and Sex, Blood and Mutilation. See the interview with Joe Christ in this week's "Screens" section and check out his website at http://www.taoweb.com/666/joec...

And while out and about, keep in mind the sense-satisfying "dinner, drinks, and a movie" screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse. In addition to this week's nightly screenings of Air Force One and Cop Land, the midnight movie this week is Peter Jackson's horror cult classic Dead Alive.