Nearly 600 amateur filmmakers spent 48 hours on the weekend of July 18 to 20 all over the state making 52 short films as part of the third annual 48 Hour Film Project.

This weekend, the best of the best of those films will be screened at tomorrow’s closing night of the 12th Rhode Island International Film Festival at the Columbus Theatre.

Providence is one of 70 cities around the world that took part in the 48 Hour Film Project, which is based in Washington, D.C., but now has outposts in Paris, Tel Aviv, India and Spain. Filmmaking contestants gathered at a Warwick hotel on the night of July 18 to learn that they each had to use the same prop — this year it was a pear — the same character — a hairstylist named either Monica or Monte Cheney — and the same line of dialogue — “If you see him again, tell me” — somewhere in their completed film. Then they drew a slip of paper out of a hat that told them what genre their film had to be — science-fiction, horror, a comedy, a cop movie, etc.

The contest ended 48 hours later on July 20 when the filmmakers again gathered at the hotel with a completed short film which had to run at least 4 minutes, but no longer than 7.

A preview of some of these films showed that there’s a lot of pent-up talent out there. The films were, for the most part, clever, tightly constructed and remarkably expensive looking. The subjects ranged from a nun toting a machine gun to an Oregon senator who wanted to make the pear that state’s official fruit to a bed and breakfast haunted by the ghost of a girl to a singing cowboy-hairdresser dancing a polka.

That last film is A Few Perfect Heads, which also is the title of this goofy film’s theme song. It is performed on screen by Bill Dyszel who is the star, writer, director, producer, editor, “dialect coach, motor coach, two seats in coach” as the film’s credits read. Dyszel is a one-man show and veteran of the 48 Hour Film Project, having made 17 films in eight cities over the years.

Other films, such as Nun of That from the Scorpio Releasing filmmaking team, are more elaborate and include special effects, lots of location work and lots of costumes and props. In the very funny Nun of That, a nun who has been killed in a Mob shootout is ordered by Jesus back to Earth to wreak havoc on the mobsters. “I murder for God,” she declares, enlisting the help of a machine-gunning priest and a nun who becomes a suicide bomber.

Director Chris Simmons got some hapless undertaker to let him use a casket for his creepy comedy, The Lure of Death, in which a pair of fishermen break into a funeral home to steal a prize fishing lure that is about to be buried with a corpse. In this one, “Monica Cheney” is the funeral home’s stylist who arrives with a pear for lunch.

There are films about the dating game — Pear Me Up, Buttercup is a charmer about a man who goes to a speed-dating session and finds the woman behind the voice he has fallen in love with over the phone — films about politics — Man of the People is about a “perfect candidate” who tells the people what they want to hear, but longs to be himself — fantasy films — Misery Island has a bored wife dreaming about the man of her dreams and making her fantasy romance come true, maybe — horror-comedy films — Monday the 13th has a man encountering a vampire, a flying saucer, creepy little girls, a hitchhiking zombie, a man in a hockey mask wielding a knife and more on his way to work, none of which is as nerve-wracking to him as the thought of making a presentation to his boss.

At tomorrow night’s show, awards will be handed out. Besides prizes for best acting, directing and editing, there will be awards for “best use of line, best prop visual, best use of character, best genre, the audience award.” No one will go home disappointed.

Best of the 48 Hour Film Competition will be screened at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Columbus Theatre, 270 Broadway, Providence, as part of the 12th Rhode Island International Film Festival. For a schedule of other festival events, see rifilmfest.org.

mjanuson@projo.com