Rhode Islander Richard Jenkins, seen here in The Visitor, will receive the festival’s George M. Cohan Ambassador Award for his body of work on stage and screen.

TPN / JAY L. CLENDENIN

PROVIDENCE Jessie Pittrizzi, a student intern from South Carolina who is working for the summer with the 12th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival, rolls her eyes and says with a sigh, “I love the moms.”

She’s talking about a facet of organizing a film festival that probably few have considered: “The moms.”

They’re the ones who call to badger festival organizers and then badger them some more to give their son or daughter’s film a good berth in the festival because, hands down, it is easily the best feature-documentary-short (pick one) of anything out there.

Of course, then there are the filmmakers themselves, each of whom is convinced that his/her film is a work of genius and MUST BE IN THE FESTIVAL.

“You get the people who tell you, ‘I think my film should play because I spent the seventh grade at Middletown High,’ ”says Abra Moore, a recent University of New Hampshire graduate who is doing publicity for the RIIFF as an intern this summer.

“All submitters have a Rhode Island connection, no matter how tenuous,” she said.

When you have an event such as the Rhode Island fest — which opens Tuesday night with a batch of short films on screen at the 3,000-seat Providence Performing Arts Center and continues through next Sunday,with 289 films screened — you’re talking a lot of phone calls and a lot of hand-wringing.

After all, there were more than 3,000 entries and only 289 slots to fill, although that number edges up slightly daily. It changes so much, in fact, says Chase Huneke (who has taken off a year between his junior and senior years at Brown University to help with the festival’s programming), that whenever the schedule is updated, they not only put the date the new schedule was printed on the front cover, but also the time of day it came out.

A festival of the magnitude of the RIIFF, which will show films on screens from Providence to Narragansett, has independent films and shorts from such far-flung places as Afghanistan, Angola, Antarctica, Argentina, Australia and Austria — and those are just the A’s. More than 53 countries are represented, and George Marshall, who founded the RIIFF and has been its executive director for all its existence, adds that filmmakers from Italy, Austria, China, Japan, Britain, Germany and France will be coming to Rhode Island to present their films in person.

“One filmmaker,” says Huneke, who is originally from Kentucky, “is flying in from New Delhi for 36 hours.”

In addition, there will be sidebar festivals-within-the-festival to showcase films that have something special to say to Jews, gays and lesbians, and artists. There are made-in-Rhode-Island films, films made by and for children, film forums for filmmakers to network with each other, a two-day workshop on how to get one’s script produced.

Many of the films will be screened in Providence at the Columbus Theatre, the Cable Car Cinema, the University of Rhode Island Feinstein downtown campus and the Providence Public Library. There will also be screenings at the Narragansett Cinema, the Community College of Rhode Island campus in Newport, the Cranston Senior Center, the Barrington Public Library and the Courthouse Center for the Arts in Kingston.

Other sites are specific to the kinds of films shown, such as Gallery Z on Atwells Avenue, for a film about an Armenian photographer living in Iran, while Jewish-themed films will be at the Brown-Rhode Island School of Design Hillel House.

Since very few of the films have been shown at other film festivals, Marshall says, “We don’t know what we’ll be getting when the filmmakers start submitting their films in September. One year we might be heavy on animation. This year there are a lot of Spanish films.

“Our stuff hasn’t been released yet and is not in distribution. All of our fresh product comes in from mid-May to June. One of the filmmakers just sent us a work in progress last week in hopes of getting a screening.”

All eight interns on the staff get a chance to watch the films, which helps them to not only know what will be showing in the festival but also to build good relations with the filmmakers.

“It helps when a filmmaker calls us and you know exactly what their film is about,” says Moore.

And it helps build good relations when the RIIFF keeps filmmakers in the loop regarding the status of their films, even when their films are rejected. Steven Karageanes, a Massachusetts filmmaker whose film American Piety was rejected for this year’s festival, although it had been screened in Cannes, Monaco, New York, Cleveland and Colorado, wrote to the RIIFF, praising them for being the only festival to let him know about the status of his film.

“It’s customer service,” says Marshall.

Most festivals, he says, only tell filmmakers when their films have been accepted. Festival development director Demetria Carr adds, “It’s what makes us different from other festivals. Our festival is about filmmakers. The focus is on filmmakers more than on the audience. I feel that it helps us attract more films and better films and it happens year after year. And because of that, it attracts audiences.”

“I got an e-mail from a filmmaker in Italy whose film was accepted,” adds Pittrizzi, the gist of which was, “This was my dream. You have made my life.”

Besides the filmmakers, some of the stars will be here this year, including Blythe Danner, whose Rhode Island-made comedy Side by Each will be shown at 7 p.m. on Aug. 9 at the Columbus. Danner will also receive the festival’s 2008 Creative Vision Award. An actress who has made her mark in movies, on the stage, and on television, Danner was part of the Trinity Rep Company at the beginning of her career.

John Ratzenberger, who played Cliff the postman for 11 years on TV’s Cheers, will be at the premiere of his film, The Village Barbershop, at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Columbus, and he’ll emcee Tuesday’s opening night show at PPAC.

Also attending the festival will be former Trinity Rep actor Dan Butler, who will present the political mockumentary he stars in, Karl Rove I Love You, at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Columbus’ upstairs Cinematheque theater.

Richard Jenkins, a Rhode Islander who was lauded earlier this year for his performance in The Visitor and is currently on screen in Step Brothers, with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, will receive RIIFF’s George M. Cohan Ambassador Award for his body of work on stage and screen. The presentation has been tentatively scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 9 at the Columbus, just before Danner’s film goes on screen.

The RIIFF doesn’t only depend on its judges, who include filmmakers, arts professors and journalists, to choose its films. Throughout the year it holds “You Be the Judge” nights around the state, often in libraries and arts centers. At these events the public is invited to see some of the entries and vote on which ones they think should be in the August festival.

“It helps to get someone from the community and helps get diversity,” says Huneke.

It also helps build interest in the festival and a needed base, according to Carr.

“I have no budget, but we can put on a $10,000 opening night at PPAC because of support from community organizations,” Carr says breezily. “Restaurants donate, venues donate, florists, even the waiters and bartenders. Air conditioning was the only thing we had to pay for at one event and in the end even that was donated.”

Huneke says with a laugh that Carr’s motto is: “I get everything for free.”

That’s important during the economic slowdown the state and the nation are experiencing. Marshall says the festival is still charging the same $10 for each screening that it has been charging for several years. In addition, there’s a Rhode Island Recession Buster package for those who buy online: six tickets to screenings, a $60 value, for $40. For $45 you can get those six tickets plus a ticket, normally $20, to Tuesday’s opening night gala at PPAC.RIIFF staff picks

Because so many of the films in the Rhode Island International Film Festival have never been shown anywhere else — there are 58 world premieres and 41 U.S. or North American premieres in the mix — it’s difficult to get a handle on what they are about. You can check out the complete schedule and synopses, as well as purchase tickets, online at rifilmfest.org. Meanwhile, the festival staff has been persuaded to come up with some of their favorites to give you a heads-up on films to watch for.

Executive Director George Marshall likes Megalopolis (showing 9:30 p.m. on Aug. 9 at the Cable Car), from Italy, which was “shot at five or six locations around the world in one day. It has amazing imagery that shows how so many different things are going on around the world in a single day with so many different kinds of people, but in the end you see the human element that links us together is the same.”

Adam Short, RIIFF’s producing director, likes the 12-minute La Quela (7:15 p.m. on Aug. 6 in a collection of short films at the Columbus’ upstairs Cinematheque theater), a black comedy from Spain set in the 1920s about a little girl in a poor family who receives a doll and . . . well, that’s the surprise.

Intern Abra Moore likes Accelerating America (7 p.m. on Aug. 7 at the Columbus), a locally made documentary about inner-city students at a Rhode Island middle school who are inspired by their principal, Robert DeBlois, a quadriplegic. “It had its world premiere in Seattle and this is its first local showing,” Marshall says.

Intern Jessie Pittrizzi says, “I love the student film The Wall,” (7 p.m. on Aug. 5 at PPAC and 8 p.m. on Aug. 6 at Brown/RISD Hillel). It’s about a suicidal cellist whose mournful playing inspires the woman listening through the wall of the apartment next door.

One film they all agree on is The Next Floor (7 p.m. on Aug. 5 at PPAC), from Quebec, Canada. “It’s kind of outrageous,” is all staffer Chase Huneke would say about it, mysteriously. “It was the favorite of our staff, but no one was able to admit it,” adds Marshall. “It comes as a total surprise. It’s not what you expect.”

But then, that’s the whole point of a film festival like the RIIFF.

mjanuson@projo.com