The 44th annual Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival offers more than movie-watching. 

The film festival, run by MSP Film Society, returns April 2-13 to The Main Cinema and a few other local theaters, such as Capri Theater. Over 200 international films will be shown, including several Minnesota-made films and Sundance premieres with Minnesota connections.  

Several filmmakers and professionals in the industry are coming for filmmaker conversations and Q&As.

The first Saturday of the festival, April 5, is a full day of Minnesota feature filmmakers talking about their experiences and panels on topics such as career navigation, filmmaking skills and how festivals and programming work. 

There are other panels on intimacy coordinators, documentary filmmakers and Minnesota’s growing animation industry.

“The panels are really geared towards entry-level student filmmakers and students in general,”  MSP Film Society publicity manager Kelly Nathe said. 

Additionally, every visiting filmmaker will have a Q&A after their film showing. 

Ang Lee, the director of “Brokeback Mountain,” is coming to the festival on April 6 for a special screening of the film in honor of its 20th anniversary. The directors of the opening night film “Free Leonard Peltier,” Jesse Short Bull and David France, will be attending the opening night party after the film screening. 

Attending these Q&A sessions benefits all students just by having important conversations about the content of the films. 

“Those are great opportunities for students,” Nathe said. “They don’t just talk about how they got their films made. They’ll talk about topics they explore in their films.” 

“Free Leonard Peltier” is a documentary that premiered at Sundance earlier this year. It follows the Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who started the American Indian Movement in Minnesota in the ‘70s, Nathe said. He was falsely imprisoned for the murder of two FBI agents in South Dakota and was sentenced to life in prison until Biden pardoned him as one of his last acts as president. 

“Checkpoint Zoo” and “Brooklyn, Minnesota” are some of the highly anticipated films being shown. 

“Checkpoint Zoo” follows a family who owned a zoo near the border of Ukraine when Russia first invaded and how they tried to evacuate the zoo when it was in the line of fire. The director, Joshua Zeman, will be attending the festival. 

“Brooklyn, Minnesota” is about a father-daughter duo who live in Brooklyn, New York and return to a small lake town in Minnesota for a funeral. The daughter, Maise, meets her extended family for the first time. Her dad, Kurt, wants to return to Brooklyn as soon as possible, but Maise wants to stay. 

Writers and directors Jessica Blank and Erik Jenson will be attending the festival along with the cast. They are from Minnesota and filmed a majority of the film in Minnesota. 

The film festival also offers a comedy show, karaoke night and all sorts of parties and happy hours at Pracna on Main that may be interesting to students. 

Kareem Rahma, host of “Subway Takes,” stars in the film “Or Something,” showing on April 3. He will be coming with his co-star, Mary Neely, to do a live comedy show.

The karaoke party is inspired by a couple of karaoke scenes in two of the featured films, “Bitterroot” and “Or Something.” The party is also at 9 p.m. on April 4. 

There will be a MN Made Happy Hour celebrating the films made in Minnesota, by Minnesotans and the state’s film industry in general on April 5. On top of that, there will be a thirsty Thursday happy hour in honor of Minnesota women in film and television on April 10. 

Students get discounted all-access passes to the film festival for $75. A package of six films is $30 and regular individual screenings are $10. 

During the festival, The Main still offers their “Midnight Mayhem” late-night showings on the weekends which have always been a hit with students. There is even a “Midnight Sun” party on April 12 to close out the festival.