For the first time, the Paramount Theatre will host a film festival this weekend with mostly local filmmakers.

"Projecting Their Film" An Independent Film Festival is a fund raiser for Paramount and is also sponsored by the Austin Public Library. Local filmmaker Mark Williams decided to put a festival together because he wanted one in Austin.

He advertised for participants on the library Web site and has gotten publicity from local papers. The filmmakers come from Austin, Rochester, Georgia and California. Ten films will be shown and each will last 30 minutes or less.

"People who are making movies just want to show them off. They want to tell their story," Williams said.

The following the are films that will be shown beginning at 7 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $5.

"Hymn to an Edifice"

The first film of the evening will be Tony Miller's "Hymn to an Edifice."

The Rochester resident describes the film as a tribute to the World Trade Center and documents its history from its construction to the Sept. 11 bombings.

The 10-minute film took Miller four months to make and consists of pictures he found books, magazines and the Internet. After putting the pictures on film, he added sound clips from interviews he conducted interviews with friends who live in New York City and then he set it to music.

He says he entered the film in the Paramount's film festival after it won first place at the Rochester Film Festival. "I saw an article about this film festival in the newspaper and I thought I might as well enter it," he says.

"Hymn to an Edifice" will be shown at 7 p.m.

"Beyond Expectations," "Arachnids," and "Governmental Betrayal"

William's first of three films to run Saturday is a parody of a game show. He made it to make fun of some of the ridiculous game shows on television. Williams and one of his friends star in the film.

"Beyond Expectations" will be shown at 7:15 p.m.

"Arachnids" was filmed at the Austin High School Art Show and is a music video set to a song called "Spiders." It will be shown at 8:55 p.m.

"Governmental Betrayal" is the longest of Williams' films. His friend Sam Gullickson also helped produce it. In it, the mob pays off the government so that some of its biggest mobsters are not jailed. The main character finds out about the conspiracy and the movies takes off from there.

"Governmental Betrayal" will be shown at 9 p.m.

Williams has been making movies since he was 14 years old. He wants to be involved in the film industry somehow, whether he does camera work, directs or acts. He is looking into film schools in Minneapolis, New York City, Los Angeles and Hawaii. "It started out as a hobby and grew into a passion which grew into a career goal," he said.

"Post Office People" and "Reflections on the Cedar"

Richard Kelly, of Austin, will show two films at the festival, "Post Office People" and "Reflections on the Cedar."

A retired letter carrier, he made "Post Office People" years ago and says it's a comedy that's "a delightful little film. It's very entertaining."

"Reflections on the Cedar" is a 26-minute film documenting the old Hormel Foods Corp. plant and the construction of the current factory. The film was made in honor of his father and four brothers who worked at the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad which shipped Hormel products all over the country. Kelly says he thought the film festival "would be a good chance to show the film. I thought it would be good for the old folks who remember the old plant and for the younger folks who have never seen it … it's very entertaining."

"Post Office People" will be shown at 7:20 p.m. and "Reflections on the Cedar" will be shown at 8 p.m.

"The Farm: An Autobiography"

Former Austin resident Scott T. Anderson and his wife Sarah L. Puotinen documented her family farm in upper Michigan last summer and decided this festival would be a good way to show it. Anderson, who now lives in Atlanta, found out about the festival on the library Web site.

The film documents how Puotinen's family lives on the farm even though it is not running anymore. "The farm has been an important place in our family. We're always trying to document why it's important to us."

"The Farm: An Autobiography" will be shown at 7:30 p.m.

"Independent Movie 2"

Bronson Petit's film is a compilation of three shorts. The first is a parody of a movie, the second is footage from a zoo that he "made funny" and a claymation film. He became interested in film-making a year and a half ago and now recruits his friends to be in his movies.

"It lets me express my creative side," Petit said.

"The Quarry"

The final film of the evening is Greg Chwerchak's 30-minute film, "The Quarry."

The movie is the second one Chwerchak, of Los Angeles, has entered in film festivals. He says the film is about a dead body that surfaces in a water-filled quarry in a small New Jersey town and "it takes an event and tells the story from the perspectives of all the people involved.

"It really makes the audience question who they can believe, which narrator is telling the truth."

It's a classic "who-done-it," he explains, "but each version gets crazier and crazier."

Like many of the other film festivals he's entered, Chwerchak says he found the Paramount film festival on the Internet and he's interested in how Austin audiences react to the film. "It's really amazing to see all the responses of different geographic regions. I recently showed it in Fargo, and had a fantastic response from the audience there, so hopefully I'll get the same thing from the audience in Austin."

"The Quarry" will be shown at 9:30 p.m.

Amanda L. Rohde can be reached at 434-2214 or by e-mail at amanda.rohde@austindailyherald.com