by Derick Dupre

Starting this Friday at the Prytania Theatre, the fourth installment of the filmOrama showcase will make its return. The program was curated by the staff of the New Orleans Film Society, and represents a wide diversity of styles, subject matter, and nationalities.

If you can read this, you can read subtitles. Even though some folks shy away from foreign language movies, this year’s New Orleans French Film Festival offers plenty of reasons to exercise your readin’ muscles.

This week's New Orleans Elvis sighting is slated for a place that's no stranger to the paranormal. The King will appear larger than life tomorrow night on a giant inflatable screen at the Old U.S. Mint, as the New Orleans Film Society screens Crescent City-set 1958 classic King Creole, starring Elvis Presley as Danny Fisher, who takes a job at the King Creole to support his father. Dealings with "hoods" and "floozies" quickly ensue, but all is kept above board with a few classic Elvis numbers. Admission is $6, and showtime is just after 8 p.m.

by Mary-Devon Dupuy

When most people reflect fondly on their high school experiences, very few of them are reminiscing about the solid, triangular layer of cheese on the top of their slice of “pizza,” or the questionable meat patty on their “hamburger.” School lunch lines are notoriously full of processed foods that slow students down rather than pumping them full of the nutrients growing kids need to make their brains and their bodies operate at top speed. A small group of New Orleans kids decided they deserved better from their cafeterias, and they challenged a food service provider to provide them with fresh, healthy food for two days of the week. Recently, HBO chronicled their efforts, and the documentary will be screened this week so locals can see the fruits of their labor.

by Brad Rhines

It’s hard to imagine New Orleans without Jazz Fest, but the annual event has a relatively short history. The first fest happened in 1970 at Congo Square, before moving to the Fairgrounds two years later.  The New Orleans Film Society (NOFS) has unearthed footage from the inaugural festival and will present a free screening of these early films at the U.S. Mint on Wednesday night.

If gray skies are making this weekend feel like a good weekend to catch a movie, there's plenty of options that don't involve driving out to the 'burbs. That's because the time of the New Orleans' Film Society's annual look at fresh independent pictures, known as filmOrama, is with us until we start packing up the folding chairs for the Fair Grounds. The Prytania Theatre projectors started rolling on this fest yesterday. But most of the films shown will get a second showing, so there's still plenty of time left in the five-day fest. Click through for five highlights of the schedule.

Today, the Black Tie Bowling Fundraiser will take place at Rock 'N' Bowl, The New Orleans Film Society will host its gala at the Eiffel Society, and Yelawolf will perform at the House of Blues. But September 29 is also when John D. Rockefeller became the world’s second billionaire (1916), Chevrolet’s Camaro was introduced (1966), Detroit’s WGPR became the world’s first black-owned and operated TV station (1975), and Pope John Paul I was found dead in his Vatican apartment one month after becoming head of the Church (1978). Today is Caravaggio's birth(1571), Carson McCullers died (1967). Now for more details:

by Sean Rhoads

The New Orleans Film Society continues its torrid pace of film screenings tonight with the inspirational documentary Pushing the Elephant at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The film tells the story of Rose Mapendo, a Congolese woman whose family was torn apart by the civil war which raged across Congo in the late nineties. Mapendo emerged from the nightmarish experience as a

vocal advocate for forgiveness in a country riddled with ethnic division. She reunites with her young daughter after 13 years apart and tries to help her come to grips with her traumatic past.

by Sean Rhoads

Now that Jazz Fest is over, rest your bloated, sunburned body in the air conditioning and watch a movie (or seven) at New Orleans Film Society’s Film-O-Rama. The slate of recent independent and foreign films (along with a couple of old favorites) runs at Uptown’s Prytania Theater from this Friday, May 13, to the following Thursday, May 19. A kickoff party, featuring cocktails and trailers of the week’s movies, is slated for tonight at 6 p.m. at Ste. Marie restaurant on Poydras St.

May 11, when Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U.S. State (1858), when Mercedes-Benz formed (1924), when thirty-six year old Bob Marley died of foot cancer (1981), when Baltimore saw the first sccessful heart-lung transplant completed (1887), and when Admiral Thad Allan was appointed as leader of the Federal response to the erl spill (2010). Meanwhile, in NOLA news: