There are not many pieces like “Dandelion Clock” to be seen around the South Fork, and that is both too bad and kind of wonderful. The reason it is wonderful is that the “interactive immersive installation,” in the words of the artist, John Carpenter, remains on view at the Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton through this weekend, and it would be a good idea to see it.

    The piece is a video installation in the gallery’s loft, a great open space for artists to play in and for audiences to focus on one or two strong works. In the case of “Dandelion Clock,” it doesn’t look like much at first, although the tightly compacted seeds of the dandelion can seem like a universe just before a big bang.

    But move closer and blam, it happens. As the viewer approaches, depending on the angle and movement, the seeds may quiver, morph amoeba-like, or explode into a galaxy of their own. Any motion will do, and viewers’ experiences of it depend solely on their own interactions with it. One can stand still and meditate or move an arm or two or make sweeping or clapping gestures. Children can find endless ways to play with it in their joyfully uninhibited fashion. Even dogs get in the act. All they need is a wagging tail and the curiosity to follow the motion of the seeds they alone have spread about. After 30 seconds of no movement, the seeds gather back into their perfect orb.

    The metaphors for this piece are endless and entirely personal. As with everything else, you get out of it what you bring to it. There is also something very reductive and pure about it. Mr. Carpenter takes a sophisticated, low-tech approach that forces the viewer to help in the piece’s realization. In a world of immersive gaming technology, this is like going back to Atari Pong, only now you are on the court.

    Having so much control over one’s experience can be heady in these uncertain times. The allusions to an all-powerful god or master of the universe are unavoidable and enticing. Who wouldn’t­ want to rule such an enchanting, delicate, and peaceful domain?

    “Dandelion Clock” is on view through Monday, along with other pieces from the show “Past and Present” by Grayson Perry, Ernesto Cai­vano, Robert Olsen, and Lee Ufan on the first floor.

    With so many films to choose from, how does one make a choice among the smaller, independent films that may never make it to distribution? The following is an opinionated sampling of the feature films available for preview before the festival.

“Big Boys Gone Bananas!*”

Fredrik Gertten

Southampton, Saturday, 1:45 p.m.; East Hampton, Monday, 8:45 p.m.

    “Documentarians tend to traffic in misery and horror,” says one Los Angeles Film Festival juror in the movie “Big Boys Gone Bananas!*”“I’ve been to many films like that but never one that had this feeling that the room could kind of blow up.”

    This is what happens at a screening at the Los Angeles Film Festival when Frederik Gertten, a Swedish filmmaker, shows his film “Bananas!*” which is critical of the Dole Company for using banned pesticides, according to its workers. Although the film was originally slated to be screened at a major venue at that festival, legal pressure from Dole forced it out of Westwood, where the other major films were being shown, and to the University of California at Los Angeles, in a suburb with no shuttle transportation provided by the festival. One journalist called it “ghettoized.” A disclaimer was read before the showing, lest Dole sue the festival.

    This is a classic talking-head, mostly first-person narrative documentary in which a film crew follows the filmmakers as they fight to have their documentary shown and released both in the United States and in their native country. The company eventually sues Mr. Gertten and his colleagues.

    The film raises questions about corporate pressure on film distributors and festivals, and the often successful pressure brought to bear on what should be an independent press. For something that appears to be rather dry fodder, the film and its content are consistently compelling as well as informative.

    Mr. Gertten does a tricky dance of exhibiting righteous outrage when his free speech is challenged while not saying explicitly whether Dole’s claims are valid. It’s an interesting gamble that often makes the film seem a bit moot if you care about such things. Still, it is a well-made and surprisingly watchable film that rewards audiences in the end.    J.L.

“Decoding Deepak”

Gotham Chopra

East Hampton, Saturday, 1:15 p.m.

    “When your dad says he is going to become a monk, you don’t make sense of it, you just roll the camera,” said Gotham Chopra, the director, screenwriter, subject, co-producer, and son of Deepak Chopra, the internationally known spiritual guru. His ordainment as a Buddhist monk in Thailand is just one setting of the father-son journey. Others include India, Sedona, Ariz., and New York City. During the process, it becomes clear that the world’s perception of Gotham’s father doesn’t align with his own.

    The film reveals the philosopher’s colorful contradictions — he likes sparkly sunglasses and red sneakers — and aspects of some who follow him, like Lady Gaga and the late Michael Jackson.

    Glimpses of family life in hotel rooms and green rooms from the director’s childhood to the present show how “the line between business and family is permanently blurred,” as well as the privileged son’s struggle with his own identity, after “inheriting a personality that wasn’t my own, and products I didn’t really buy.”

    With varied tones and priceless snapshots, including one of a half-dressed young Deepak holding a beer during his partying days, the audience should be kept engaged by the scenery, story lines, and mixed messages.    C.A.S.

“Electrick Children”

Rebecca Thomas

East Hampton, today, 3:30 p.m.; tomorrow, 5:15 p.m.

    The immaculate conception is a story that predates its biblical telling, and whether you believe Jesus was conceived via the spirit of God, or the whole thing was trumped up to save Joseph’s wife from scandal, it’s an intriguing tale.

    Rebecca Thomas, writer and director of “Electrick Children,” has cast it in a funadamalist Mormon family in Utah against Utah’s dramatic vistas. Rachel is an innocent 15-year-old who believes her womb has been implanted with God’s seed by way of a song she hears on her brother’s tape player, a tape player on which her father earlier recorded her sacred pledge to Jesus Christ and the Mormon Church.

    This film is not as corny as it might sound. Strong performances by Julia Garner, Rory Culkin, Liam Aiken, Bill Sage, and Billy Zane add present-day substance to a mystery that has intrigued Christians and non-Christians for millennia. A dark counterpart completes the picture.    R.D.

“56 Up”

Michael Apted

East Hampton, tomorrow, 9 p.m.

Sag Harbor, Sunday, 5:30 p.m.

    How do you measure a life? For Michael Apted, in meters of unspooling celluloid. He’s done so for a number of United Kingdom residents, tracing their lives with candid interviews conducted every seven years and shown on British television, starting when they were 7 in 1964 and reaching the 56-year mark in his latest film, “56 Up.”

    As his subjects take stock of their lives, the number of failed marriages described is striking, particularly when intercut with interviews from years before, when skepticism of the institution was voiced by so many of the young interviewees. Yet the impulse remains. It’s the theme of the age. That and making do, which in some instances has become scraping by.

    Take Jackie, married at 21, divorced at 35, with three kids from two relationships. She’s been on disability for 14 years. We hear the filmmaker’s voice from off camera ask, topically, about how the government’s new austerity measures will affect her, and the answer is, severely. She’ll be dependent on her sons and other family. On the bright side, that doesn’t stop her from searching the Internet for a date.

    Throughout this unprecedented project, an engrossing look into the travails and sometimes triumphs of the beleaguered middle class, the transformations of appearance (added girth, thinned hair) and perspective can be as bracing as they are moving. Some subjects even revolt against the unblinking eye of the camera. Neil protests that one cannot know another’s life. Peter, who quit the project at age 28 after being lambasted in the press for daring to criticize then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, returns to turn the camera to his own purposes and promote his band.    B.G.

“James Salter: A Sport and

a Pastime”

Edgar Howard, Sandy Gotham Meehan, Tom Piper

East Hampton, Sunday, 3:30 p.m.

    This one-hour documentary is a love letter from the filmmakers to James Salter, and in particular to the Bridgehampton resident’s great 1967 novel of France, romance, and eroticism, “A Sport and a Pastime.”

    The question is, to what end? Evangelism? To pull you under the sway of the master? If you’ve never read Salter, you are likely to be unmoved, which is too bad, as the book is one of the most affecting ever written by an American. Reading snippets doesn’t do justice to the writing, and neither does the somewhat drawled delivery of the reader, the late Reynolds Price, to whom the film is dedicated and whose blurb appears on every copy of the book.

    The story involves Dean, a Yale dropout, and Anne-Marie, who is provincial and 18. Their affair is conducted in hotels across the French countryside, as relayed, dreamlike, by a third party, Dean’s friend. He can’t have seen or known all he describes, or has it all been imagined? Speakers in the film — critics and other authors — speculate on this. What’s more, locations in the novel are shown, Salter’s long-ago visit to the village of Autun is revisited, and we learn that he drove a car nearly as elegant as the novel’s Delahaye coupe. But explicating the mystery only diminishes it. It doesn’t benefit the reader or the work to know whether Anne-Marie actually existed.

    Salter fans will find nuggets of interest, as when he tells a book group in Autun that deciding to use a narrator was difficult, and that once he’d established the tone, he was off and writing. And those narrow, cobbled streets and wooden shutters are awfully charming, aren’t they?    B.G.

“Lumpy”

Ted Koland

East Hampton, Tomorrow 8 p.m.; Saturday 3:15 p.m.

    Lumpy’s turn as a best man takes a turn for the tragic when he dies during his best friend’s destination wedding. After the newlywed couple, played by Justin Long and Jess Wexler, cancel their honeymoon to arrange for his funeral, they begin to learn much more about their friend’s complicated and unconventional life.

    The film, based in Minnesota, touches on a variety of contemporary issues such as disaffected veterans, drug abuse both for fun and for problems, the soullessness of the workplace and the American school system, and the stress and pressures of the beginnings of married life.

    As bizarre as the circumstances sometimes seem, the writing and characters make the film believable and true. And with so much sadness at its core, the ending provides some affirmation about life, dreams, and hope.    J.L.

“Mondays at Racine”

Cynthia Wade

Saturday 10:45 a.m., Sunday 7:30 p.m., Monday at 2 p.m. East Hampton

    Beauty that runs much deeper than skin and hair is captured within the walls of a salon in Islip that offers complimentary support once every month to women suffering from breast cancer.

    The documentary’s powerful images portray the trauma experienced by those who have chosen to be treated with chemotherapy and who suffer the devastating consequences, such as hair loss. Light is also shed on other side effects of the disease and its most common treatments, including the toll taken on relationships and self-esteem of those who choose mastectomies.

    There is no shortage of moving moments, with real-life survivors from varied backgrounds and ages shown during vulnerable moments in their struggle. Empathetic salon owners hold their hands as their heads are shaved. The film displays a true understanding of the difference that emotional support can provide.

    A screening with panel discussion will be offered after Monday’s 2 p.m. screening.    C.A.S.

“The New Public”

Jyllian Gunther

East Hampton, Today 5:15 p.m., Sunday 5:45 p.m.

    The daily triumphs and struggles of life in an inner-city neighborhood are on stark display in “The New Public,” a powerful documentary of Brooklyn Community Arts and Media High School, a public high school established in Bedford-Stuyvesant in 2006. One of more than 300 small, theme-based schools opened by the City of New York since 2003, B.C.A.M. is the setting for much of the film, which details the freshman and senior years of the school’s inaugural graduating class.

    “The New Public” is powerful. Students and faculty alike rush headlong into an academic setting that is new and different, most of them practically giddy with optimism. The verité footage, some shot by students in and around the school as well as in their homes, captures moving portraits of teenagers experiencing their first-ever epiphany. The viewer can actually see the radiance on a student’s face when they are stimulated, challenged, and rise to the occasion.

    But unbridled hope soon gives way to reality and its often-accompanying disappointment. Students grow weary of the unfamiliar demands on their time and intellect. Members of the faculty, obviously passionate and committed educators among them, express their own frustration with students, co-workers, and themselves as they navigate terrain that is almost as unfamiliar to them.

    “The New Public” vividly illustrates the range of human experience against the backdrop of troubled and often dangerous Bedford-Stuyvesant:  a student with a secret he is terrified to reveal; a parent so heavily invested in her son’s academic success that she is regularly brought to tears, and the teachers’ struggles to identify with their students and penetrate the “urban armor” they have all worn from an early age.

    As Kevin Greer, a teacher, notes, “You’re dealing with basic inequalities. Our society’s problems are so enormous, and they’re all foisted upon the schools to fix them.” The small victories and crushing defeats that play out in such a Herculean task are dramatically presented in “The New Public.”    C.W.

“Rising From Ashes”

T.C. Johnstone

East Hampton, Tomorrow, 4 p.m.; Saturday, 4 p.m.

    For most Americans, winning is everything. For a Rwandan, opportunity is everything. There is something refreshing about that. This is a story about Rwanda’s first national cycling team and what can be achieved against all odds — the power to rise from the ashes like a phoenix, when you come from a place recently ravished by genocide.

    A bicycle represents freedom in Rwanda, where poverty, crime, and stagnation are commonplace. Freedom to go. To escape.

    Jonathan (Jock) Boyer, the first American to ride the Tour de France, a man with problems of his own, harnesses cyclists’ raw talent, as well as their pain and grief, to lead them to compete on the world cycling stage. This story chronicles the team’s development from Day One in 2006, to its race for a potential Olympic berth in 2011.

    “Rising From Ashes” covers a lot in 82 minutes. Several elements could be taken separately to create another film (i.e., the colonization of Rwanda, which separated the population into three ethnic groups; the story of Jock Boyer; and the story of each Rwandan team member, including their star rider, Adrien Niyonshuti). Altogether, the separate themes mesh to create a great recipe for an inspirational documentary, just as the team works in harmony to create success.

    From the bikes Rwandans ride — most likely discarded relics from a wealthy Western nation — to their love for their beautiful country and curiosity about faraway places, the film gives the impression that Rwanda isn’t so distant. It says we are all connected.    L.L.

“Sparrows Dance”

Noah Buschel

East Hampton, tomorrow, 5:30 p.m.; Sun­day, 5:30 p.m.

    Director and screenwriter Noah Buschel has come up with a wonderful set piece, a sad story that becomes a love story in a warm and fundamental way — a broken toilet.

    We don’t know why exactly, but a young woman, a former actress (played by Marin Ireland) has sealed herself off from the world in her apartment. Her face twitches in response to even the slightest stress, and really twitches when no one comes to the aid of a girl being attacked on the street below her window. She is paralyzed with fear.

    A door to her reclusive life is opened, literally, when her toilet breaks and she is forced to admit a plumber to fix it. The plumber (actor Paul Sparks) is a saxophone player, oil cast upon the former actress’s turbulent internal sea. “Sparrows Dance” is a highly nuanced film that proves love can sprout in the most unlikely places, even from a broken toilet. A heart-warmer.    R.D.

“War Witch”

Kim Nguyen

East Hampton, Tomorrow, 11 a.m.

French with English subtitles

    The director and screenwriter Kim Nguyen disposes with exposition, thrusting us into the bleak, war-torn world that is much of Africa today. Mr. Nguyen takes us into the Democratic Republic of Congo, where this film was shot, a land where civilization exists in vestiges.

    We follow the preteen Komona, played with a searing sincerity by Rachel Mwanza, on a journey into womanhood that begins with her kidnapping from her village, forced to execute her own parents with an AK-47.

    She is taught that her weapon is her new “mama and papa,” as she fights and kills for a rebel leader named the Grand Tigre Royal. She drinks “magic milk,” the hallucinogenic sap from a tree fed to child warriors to make them better killers, and begins to have visions of the dead, allowing her to guide the young troops in battle. Soon she is given the title of War Witch, and is brought to the Grand Tigre himself.

    By her side is another child warrior, Magician, played by another brilliant young actor, Serge Kanyinda, who dispenses protective magic while watching over Komona. The two run away, and Mr. Nguyen shows his deep understanding of the cinematic art form, and allows us to laugh, as they search the countryside for a white rooster, the possession of which would allow them to marry.

    But as the world of modernity is swallowed up by weeds and vegetation, so too is the couple, by the violence around them. Komona finishes her journey alone, asleep, her baby in another woman’s arms, a glimmer of hope in a dark, bleak land.

    “War Witch” is probably too truthful and honest for an American commercial release, let alone East Hampton. Good luck sipping your Sancerre after this one. But it is one of the best films of the year.     T.E.M.

“Wild in the Streets”

Peter Baxter

East Hampton, Sunday, 1 p.m.; Monday, 6:45 p.m.

    The British Isles have many traditions of odd free-for-all sport. Whether they are racing a wheel of Cheddar down a hillside in Gloucestershire, bowling in the streets of County Armagh in Northern Ireland, or moving a ball three miles up and down the streets, fields, and river of Ashbourne in Derbyshire, they will not be deterred from their venerable pursuits.

    “Wild in the Streets” chronicles the latter rite, an inexplicable “mass football” game that takes place every year before Lent in the one town that continued it after similar games were outlawed over the rest of England. Called Shrovetide, after the English name for the two-day period of Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, it was in its earliest days a widespread event that initially, legend has it, employed a sacrificial virgin’s head. It now uses a specially sewn four-pound leather ball.

    About the only rules are to stay out of the churchyard and to pick a side, either “Up’ard” or “Down’ard” from the town’s river, and stay with it throughout your life. The game is scored by bringing the ball back to the team’s home goal, three miles from the opponent’s.

    Complete with Monty Python-esque animation and subtitles for the type of Midlands accent that can render English incomprehensible to outsiders, the movie has the expected cast of characters, mad for the game and the tradition it implies. It explores the game from its ancient roots and past glories up to a present-day two-day match, with its rough-and-ready tussles on the land and in the water in just-above-freezing temperatures.

    The film is a jolly, free-wheeling celebration of tradition in the face of constant challenges to its existence.    J.L.

“Zen of Bennett”

Unjoo Moon

East Hampton, Today 2 p.m.

    Early arrivals to the film festival should check out this film, which was part of the festival’s SummerDocs series this year. Although Mr. Bennett will not be in attendance this time to speak with Alec Baldwin, the film itself provides an insightful and joyful look at the 85-year-old man who has earned the title of “legend.”

    Exploring both the quotidian activities of the man as well as his enviable and fascinating life in the studio and his travels around the globe, the film contains several studies of his work with other singers while working on his series of duets albums.

    There are sessions with superstars of pop and opera from divas like Lady Gaga to divos like Andrea Bocelli. A particularly edgy session with Amy Winehouse shows the unsteady star nervous and shrill at first and then gradually blossoming under the steady guidance of Mr. Bennett’s assuredness. It’s a magical interlude made all the more haunting by the star’s demise not long after.                 J.L.   

Perlman in Fall

    The Perlman Music Program on Shelter Island will present alumni recitals and works-in-progress concerts in the program’s Kristy and James H. Clark Arts Center this fall. The alumni recitals will be on Saturday and Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. This week’s concert will feature Molly Carr on viola and Yannick Rafalimanana on piano performing works by Rebecca Clarke, Edward Elgar, and Franz Schubert. Tickets cost $20 in advance, $25 at the door.

    The works-in-progress concerts on Sunday and Nov. 18 at 3 p.m. are free and will showcase students and alumni performing works they are attempting to refine in an informal concert setting. Reservations are required. Information about tickets is at perlmanmusicprogram.org.

Bay Street Auditions

    Auditions for the Bay Street Theatre’s Literature Live! production of “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller will be held in the Sag Harbor theater today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The play will be directed by Murphy Davis, Bay Street’s artistic director. All rehearsals and performances will be held there.

    Housing will not be provided. Actors who live within a 50-mile radius of Sag Harbor have been urged to attend, as have performers of all ethnic and racial backgrounds. The show dates are Nov. 6 to 24. Information about preparation and character breakdowns can be found at baystreet.org.

Print Appraisals

    The Suffolk County Historical Society in Riverhead is offering print appraisals on Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. Robert K. Newman of the Old Print Shop will be on hand to look at prints and maps and perhaps discover some treasures. The $10 fee per item will benefit the historical society.

    The Old Print Shop is one of the oldest family-run art galleries in the country, specializing in historic American prints. The event is part of the show “Currier & Ives: Printmakers to the American People,” which has more than 275 hand-colored lithographs on view through Jan. 25.

   A concert featuring the Gawler Family and Bennett Konesni of Shelter Island’s Sylvester Manor will take place on Sunday at 2 p.m. in the meetinghouse of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork in Bridgehampton.

   The Gawlers, who hark back to folk traditions from throughout the world, are known for their ballads and more raucous fiddle tunes. Edith Gawler has brought her new husband, Mr. Konesni, to the group. He plays ancient work songs on his banjo and guitar.

   Molly Gawler plays the fiddle and has produced an album of lullabies, “Honey Dreams,” which features her singing and a wooden banjo. She has been traveling and performing with the Pilobolus Dance Theatre’s international touring company, and has appeared on the Academy Awards show and “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”

   John Gawler has taken his guitar and banjo to Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Algeria, Poland, and Cuba with the group Old Grey Goose International. Ellen Gawler is a Maine fiddler who captures maritime, Irish, New England, Shetland, and Quebecois styles in her work. She has toured the Northeast, Northwest, and Europe, and she has recorded with the Pineland Fiddlers, Village Harmony, the Pine Hill Band, the Maine Country Dance Orchestra, and others.

   Another Gawler, Elsie, incorporates the cello into folk music, with lively jigs and reels added to her melancholy waltzes.

   The concert is the first of three benefits for the congregation and food pantries on the South Fork. Tickets cost $20, or $50 for all three concerts. Reservations can be made by e-mailing Tip Brolin at [email protected]. Future concerts will be by DuneGrass and Eastbound Freight in November and December.

    “Local food, spoken word, and foot-stomping music” will take over the fields at Shelter Island’s Sylvester Manor Educational Farm this weekend. Barn dancing, storytelling, and theater will also be part of Saturday’s attractions at the Plant and Sing Festival, as will all things organic, from planting to harvesting to culinary delights.

    An all-day kids area will entertain the young ones with pony rides, arts and crafts, butter making, pumpkin painting and carving, farm games, and a Goat on a Boat puppet show at 4 p.m. The musical headliner, with a sunset show on Saturday, will be Béla Fleck, a 14-time Grammy Award-winning banjo player, joined by Abigail Washburn.

    Events begin tomorrow with a 7:30 p.m. Historical Film Archive screening of a roots-music film by Joe Lauro and Bennett Konesni, the farm’s creative director, at the Shelter Island Library.

    On Saturday, a 10 a.m. forest and shoreline nature walk will be led by Peter Priolo, a naturalist, and at 2 p.m., Maura Doyle will lead a tour of the manor’s historic grounds.

    Throughout the day and early evening on Saturday, a “literary lounge” will be moderated by Kathy Lynch, sponsored by Canio’s Cultural Cafe. Among the readings is one at 1:30 p.m. by Scott Chaskey called “Seedtime: The History, Husbandry, Politics, and Promise of Seeds.” Silvia Lehrer, a culinary instructor, will give a reading and a tasting of one of the recipes from her recent cookbook, “Savoring the Hamptons.”

    Megan Chaskey, a poet, musician, yoga instructor, teacher, and healing practitioner, will give a staged reading of “The Beautiful and the Senseless” on Saturday at 3 p.m. The one-act play was written about Rachel Carson to celebrate the 50th anniversary of her book “Silent Spring,” which led to a revolution in environmental thought and practice.

    Music will kick off at 1 p.m. that day with the Hoodoo Loungers, formerly the Who Dat Loungers, a New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration band, followed by Sylvester Manor’s own Worksongers and others with choral singing and folk music, both electric and unplugged. At around 3, it’ll be Lily and the Tigers performing gothic Americana tunes, and then Dunegrass and the Sun Parade Velocipede.

    The Gawler Family will play folk music with banjos and contra calling, and then Free Seedlings will take over before the Béla Fleck show.

    On Saturday and Sunday, from 6 to 8 a.m., Heidi Fokine will lead a sunrise yoga class. On Saturday, those wishing to take part in garlic shucking should arrive by 10 a.m., and on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., all have been invited to observe and join in the singing and planting of garlic at no charge, as part of the harvest festival tradition to preserve customs and explore a “contemporary culture of food that is joyful, alive with people, and rooted in place.”

    A full schedule is available at ­plantandsing.com, and tickets are available at brownpapertickets.com/event/ 266389. The $25 admission fee on Saturday includes on-site parking. The cost is $10 for students ages 7 to 21. The event is free for those under 7.

   In his 70th year, the remarkably youthful John Hammond opened the second annual Sag Harbor American Music Festival with a memorable set that spanned a wide breadth of the blues. There could hardly be a more suitable choice than Mr. Hammond, a former East Hampton resident who is also marking his 50th year as a professional musician.

    Mixing his own compositions with those he learned in a lifetime of immersion in this distinctly American form, he introduced most songs with a story about its author, sometimes involving his own first encounter with same, usually eliciting laughter from the rapt audience that filled the Old Whalers Church.

    Though his father was a legendary producer and talent scout who discovered and/or guided the careers of Billie Holliday, Charlie Christian, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen, among others, the younger Hammond took no shortcuts to stardom, instead developing an organic, authentic sound and style through his own experience. This, as he recounted, included pumping gas and riding buses to gigs in Los Angeles, and immersing himself in the country blues of the rural South and the gritty electric blues of Chicago, where he and a young musician named Mike Bloomfield would hear, and later perform with, the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Little Walter.

    For nearly two hours, Mr. Hammond performed with an unwavering intensity, lanky body coiled atop a stool, hands in constant motion, left foot resolutely stomping quarter notes, head thrown back or face contorted as he channeled Buddy Guy or Robert Johnson himself. His left hand sped from one end of the guitar’s neck to the other and back again, spitting out licks between each vocal line.

    He is similarly virtuosic on the harmonica, an accompaniment to most of the night’s repertoire. A veritable one-man band — frenzied guitar, wailing harmonica, commanding vocal, and that ever-stomping left foot — his multitasking dexterity was a sight to behold.

    He performed a broad range of music. His own “Heartache Blues” was followed by “Get Behind the Mule,” from his Tom Waits-produced “Wicked Grin” album, a collection of songs written by Mr. Waits. Next up was “My Time After a While,” a song he had vowed to learn, he recalled, after hearing it on the B-side of a Buddy Guy record. He once introduced it as such, he added, when a man approached him and angrily exclaimed, “Buddy Guy didn’t write that song! I did!” “So I’d like to play a song by Robert Geddins,” Mr. Hammond deadpanned.

    He alternated between acoustic guitar and Dobro, a bottleneck slide employed on the latter. His rendition of Muddy Waters’s “Sail On” was all guttural vocals, mournful slide guitar, and a harmonica evoking a far-off train whistle. He followed with his own “You Know That’s Cold,” to which he added the signature licks of “Dust My Broom,” a rock ’n’ roll prototype written by either Robert Johnson or Elmore James.

    “Love Changin’ Blues,” said Mr. Hammond, was written by Blind Willie McTell, who first recorded in 1926. This was followed by his own “Come to Find Out,” from his 2005 release “In Your Arms Again.”

    Sonny Boy Williamson, Mr. Hammond told the audience, was a bearish, menacing man who sang songs such as “Your Funeral My Trial.” With Mr. Bloomfield, Mr. Hammond saw Mr. Williamson perform in Chicago — not from the stage but from a table, sandwiched between two women and a bottle. He then performed Williamson’s “Fattenin’ Frogs for Snakes,” followed by Waters’s “I Can’t Be Satisfied.”

    It was the country singer-songwriter Hoyt Axton, in a chance meeting at a gas station in Los Angeles, who gave Mr. Hammond his first break. Mr. Axton, he recalled, drove up in a white Porsche and instructed him to fill the tank. A Martin D-45 acoustic guitar (“which cost three or four thousand dollars even then”) sat in the passenger seat, and Mr. Hammond was captivated. Mr. Axton invited him to play it, was suitably impressed, and arranged Mr. Hammond’s first professional performance. One led to another, and soon Mr. Hammond was driving a 1955 Ford Crown Victoria back toward Chicago, the car gaining him instant favor with the older blues musicians he and Mr. Bloomfield revered.

    These uniquely American experiences saturate Mr. Hammond’s own oeuvre and style. His festival audience was fortunate to witness a performance by a genuine link to our musical and cultural heritage.

    As the conclusion drew near, one song needed no introduction. The bottleneck slide moved across the Dobro’s six strings, and Mr. Hammond began to sing. “You better come on, in my kitchen/Well, it’s goin’ to be rainin’ outdoors.”

    With eyes closed, one might have thought Robert Johnson himself was in the house.

    The Watermill Center has announced its Fall 2012 residency artists. Each year, the organization invites artists to use its buildings and grounds as a laboratory for their visual and performance art practice and projects.

    Selection committee members included, among others, Marina Abram­ovic, Jonathan Safran Foer, Alanna Heiss, Albert Maysles, John Rockwell, Taryn Simon, and Robert Wilson, the artistic director of the center. The 12 artists selected for this year’s fall and spring programs were chosen from over 140 international applications. The four artists in attendance this fall are Katharina Schmitt, Bridget Leak, Rachel Libeskind, and Nova Jiang.

    Ms. Schmitt, who is from Germany, will develop a performance installation designed by Marsha Ginsberg and inspired by a 1978-79 performance piece where the artist locked himself in a cage in his studio for a year. In this work, the artist is interested in the role and work of the actor and questions the relationship between performer and the audience’s expectations.

    Ms. Leak, an American, will work on “Rhapsodies,” a play dealing with violence on school campuses. It incorporates theater, improvisation, opera, dance, and monologue in a loose and evolving narrative structure. She and Ms. Schmitt will be in residence through Oct. 23.

    Ms. Libeskind, also an American, will be in residence with Street Corner Society and Hansel and Gretel Picture Garden to explore the surrounding woods, beaches, and farmsteads of the center. In doing so, they will investigate “the myth of the rural, the poetics of haunting, and the dimensions of nightmare space.” The group will be here from Oct. 25 to Nov. 15, taking advantage of the Halloween period to examine “pagan rites, satanic rituals, and haunted hayrides,” to develop “NightScapes,” inspired by Elie Wiesel’s memoir “Night.”

    Finally, Ms. Jiang, an installation artist from New Zealand, will design costumes and props for her interactive project “Ideogenetic Machine,” which transforms participants into the protagonists of an algorythmically generated comic book. Her residency will last from Dec. 3 to Dec. 22.

    As in previous years, there will be open rehearsals, lectures, and demonstrations presented free to audiences in Long Island and New York City.

Sainz at Ashawagh

    Francisco Sainz will be featured in an exhibition this weekend at Ashawagh Hall in Springs. Beginning tomorrow, the artwork of Sainz, who died in 1998, will be shown with that of Susan Bradfield, Jennifer Cross, Monica Enders, Lily Kot, Teri Kennedy, Christine Newman, Maria Pessino, Gabriele Raacke, and Athos Zacharias.

    “Paco and Friends” will include paintings and masks from the personal collections of the artists exhibiting. Paco was the nickname of Sainz, who was born in Spain, but emigrated to New York in 1945 and soon became enmeshed in the artistic communities of Greenwich Village and East Hampton. His style ranged from Abstract Expressionism to a more personal, primitive approach. He lived and worked in a cottage on Huntting Lane.

    The opening reception will be held tomorrow from 5 to 8 p.m. A talk, “Remember Paco,” will be presented Sunday at 1 p.m.

I Started a Joke . . .

    “Bad Jokes” will be the new show opening at Silas Marder Gallery on Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m.

    The exhibition, organized by Tucker Marder, will deal with a range of humor, criticism, and wit to help discern when humor moves from challenging satire into the realm of poor taste. Emerging artists will join old masters and more established contemporary artists. The work will be enhanced with satirical outdoor puppet shows, installations, and film screenings.

    Artists will include Honore Daumier, Francisco Goya and Pieter Bruegel, David Shrigley, Carsten Holler, Mike Kelly, Jesse Pasca, Yung Jake, and Daniel Heidkamp.

    An outdoor installation of “Suicide Stack,” a video piece made by Clare Fontaine, a collaborative duo from Paris, will also be on view during the reception. The artwork consists of a black-and-white rolling transcript of a suicide note left by Joseph Stack before he crashed his plane into an Internal Revenue Service building in Austin, Tex. The words of his note describe his point of view and how he was driven to this act. The work will continue to be shown each Friday from 4 to 6 p.m., darkness permitting, through Dec. 14 on the haywall in the gallery’s sculpture garden. The exhibition will remain on view through Nov. 18.

Birdhouse Auction

    The eighth annual Birdhouse Auction to benefit the Coalition of Women’s Cancers at Southampton Hospital will be held on Saturday at Peter Marcelle Gallery in Bridgehampton.

    More than 80 artists will participate in creating a birdhouse for this auction, which will be held from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Renee Zellweger will serve as honorary chairwoman of the event for the seventh year.

    The auction is held in October to coincide with Breast Health Awareness Month. The organizers, including Karyn Mannix, who came up with the concept of the auction, said they hoped the event would be the “perfect reminder for all to make an appointment with the doctor for your annual health check.”

    The birdhouses may be viewed in person or online and absentee bids will be accepted at karynmannixcontemporary.com. Tickets will be on sale for $25 in advance and $30 at the door.

Bowls of Plenty Benefit

    The Water Mill Museum will hold its Bowls of Plenty fund-raiser on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For a $20 contribution, attendees will receive a one-of-a-kind bowl made by a Clay Art Guild of the Hamptons member, homemade soup, bread, drinks, and dessert. More information is available at hamptonsclayart.org.

Monica Banks Show

    Monica Banks will be showing “Cloud Garden” at the Rockland Center for the Arts in West Nyack, N.Y. The piece is a floating installation of her sculptures that incorporate beads, toys, insects, hardware, and other souvenirs of her life with fragments of the past all connected in a tangle of wire. The pieces hang as mobiles, with the dangling objects shimmering and drifting like clouds.

    An opening reception will be held on Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. The show will remain on view through Dec. 16.

John Haubrich in N.Y.C.

    John Haubrich will be featured in a dual-artist show at Fox Gallery in Northern Manhattan beginning on Wednesday from 6 to 9 p.m. His work is on view with that of Frank Boros.

    Mr. Haubrich draws from the natural and internal worlds, as well as the urban environment. His collages include paper, found objects, oils, and pencil, and explore human relationships, spirituality, life and death, and the blur between reality and fantasy.

    The show remains on view through Feb. 17.

Lambrecht in Philly

    Laurie Lambrecht’s “Roy Lichtenstein in His Studio” will be the focus of an exhibition, lecture, and book signing at the Gershman Y in Philadelphia. The Bridgehampton native was a studio assistant to Lichtenstein, who died in 1997, during the last years of his life. During that time she took many photos of the artist at work as well as his tools and paintings in progress. She published a book of these photos last year.

    The exhibition will be on view through Nov. 18. The signing and lecture will take place next Thursday.

Dan Budnik at Marcelle

    Peter Marcelle Gallery in Bridgehampton will show a selection of Dan Budnik’s photographs of artists beginning Saturday.

    Throughout his career, Mr. Budnik has been known for his portraits of important artists of the mid to late-20th century. The gallery will show works from the 1950s and 1960s through Oct. 28.

    Along with Arnold Newman, Mr. Budnik has been referred to as an artists’ photographer. According to the gallery, “he preferred to photograph artists at work or with their painting or sculpture, at one with their art.” His subjects have included Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Mark Rothko, Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, John Chamberlain, Larry Bell, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Rauschenberg.

    Mr. Budnik became a visitor to the South Fork in the late 1950s and lived here at times between 1964 to 1976. Many of his subjects were here and he took many photographs here.

Jon Mulhern in Southampton

    Jon Mulhern’s recent works will be on view this weekend at 4 North Main Gallery in Southampton. A reception will be held from 5 to 9 p.m. on Saturday.

    The show, “Uninhibited Definition,” will feature work with “raw movements — painting and sculpting using textures, creating intimate moments of detail,” according to the artist. Mr. Mulhern is originally from Maryland but moved to the South Fork a year ago to teach visual arts at the Ross School.

    The show will remain on view through Monday by appointment.

   Sometimes, late is much better than never. Such is often the case with the last-minute additions to the Hamptons International Film Festival, which can end up being some of the most talked-about films of the year.

    David Nugent, the director of programs for the festival, said last Thursday that movies in the past such as “Up in the Air,” “My Week with Marilyn,” and “Slumdog Millionaire” were among the most exciting films they had screened and all were put in well after deadline.

    The 20th anniversary of the festival this year did put more pressure on him, he said, to “dig deeper and scour more to try to find films that would reflect the aims of the festival and delight audiences, but we are always constrained by the films that are out there.” He called the recent additions a microcosm of this effort. “It’s a wide range for all sorts of people.”

    “Cloud Atlas” is an example of a big film, he said, that is also “auteur filmmaking by the makers of ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Run Lola Run,’ ” — Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, and Andy Wachowski. It is a $100 million film, but “is not a silly sci-fi movie made to sell action figures. It’s from a dense, well-loved book that tells the tale of six different times and generations.” Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, and Susan Sarandon star.    

    The festival will also include Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut, “Quartet,” about a retirement home for classical musicians. Maggie Smith stars in this adaptation of a comedic play with Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, and Michael Gambon. “It’s very good and much funnier than I thought it would be,” Mr. Nugent said.

    Some of the late additions come from the Toronto Film Festival, which predates the Hamptons festival by a couple of weeks and can be a proving ground for films. “A film might have its world premiere in Toronto and we are curious as to how it will be received, so we wait until Toronto to see,” he said. A number of films also find distributors at that festival. “When ‘The Wrestler’ sold at Toronto, we decided to include it” in 2008.

    Other times it is a matter of a film not being finished in time for the regular deadline, but it might still be of great interest to the audience here. For example, a documentary about the former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, completed only a few weeks ago, was just added. Mr. Koch, who is 84, plans to attend the screening, health permitting, according to Mr. Nugent.

    “Kon-Tiki,” another late arrival, will be Norway’s submission for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film this year. It is a feature film based on a documentary made half a century ago that won the Academy Award the year it was made. It is about an explorer, Thor Heyerdahl, who floats off on a raft to prove his theory that the settlers of the Polynesian Islands were from the Americas, not Asia, allowing prevailing regional currents to settle the matter. For Mr. Nugent, it is a personal favorite. “It has big storms and sharks and relates to our experience living on an island here. I love films like that.”

    “No Place on Earth,” which had its world premiere in Toronto, is a documentary about a family that takes to the caves in their Ukrainian town to hide from the Nazis for some 18 months, beginning in October of 1942. “A cave explorer found evidence of people in the caves from more recent times than the usual prehistoric dwellers and set about to figure it out,” Mr. Nugent said.  “The film is constructed of recreations and reminiscences of those who were children at the time but who had these vivid recollections.”

    Other films not in the original program include “Out of the Clear Blue Sky,” by Danielle Gardner, a full-length documentary that follows those connected to Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm with offices in the World Trade Center that suffered the largest loss by a single entity during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “The Zen of Bennett,” a film about Tony Bennett and his unique approach to life, was shown this summer at Guild Hall and has recently been added to the festival schedule.

    “Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007” looks at the history of the James Bond movie franchise that will be 50 years old tomorrow, Oct. 5, the anniversary of the release of “Dr. No” in 1962. A short film, “Dreaming American,” tackles immigration in a narrative format, with a cast led by Giancarlo Esposito.

    Film times and venues can be found on the film festival Web site, hamptonsfilmfest.org.

   The Hamptons International Film Festival has feature and short films from all over the globe, but one of the opportunities the festival affords is to see films that may never pass this way again, made by friends and neighbors, on a big screen. There are a number of films this year made or contributed to by South Fork natives or part-timers. The Star caught up with three of them to hear about their stories and their films.

 Casey Brooks, Editor:

“Plimpton: Starring George Plimpton as Himself”

A true local boy, Casey Brooks grew up in East Hampton and went to the School of Visual Arts after graduating from East Hampton High School. He started out working on short films and for commercial film and photography directors, and did some interview documentaries, among them “Still Bill,” on Bill Withers.

Film editing was something he “stumbled into. A commercial director needed someone to organize media. I was doing some photo stuff and I fell into full-time editing mode, moving up the ranks that way.” He said he appreciated the way editors shaped the final product. “They have a lot of power, especially in documentary films.”

He came on in the middle of the making of “Plimpton,” not knowing much about the subject. The directors, Luke Poling and Tom Bean, “had a rough cut, not really cohesive. It needed to be sussed out. I knew it was going to be a lot of work. So I quit my job and went head-deep into film.”

What little he knew about the subject became much more through the work on the film and his discussions with Mr. Bean, who was also a friend. “If you could do a full feature documentary on George it would have to be in 12 parts, not a half-hour movie.” The filmmakers settled on 89 minutes.

They decided to focus on how he became who he was — the founder and editor of The Paris Review, the bon vivant everyman adventurer who never backed down from a challenge, be it playing as a professional quarterback or a percussionist for the New York Philharmonic — from a Mayflower heritage of lawyers, publishers, politicians, and even a Civil War general.

    “He was a kid who wanted to be a writer, didn’t know how. He used his privilege and spirit to reach all these people. He started The Paris Review and stumbled into these roles of participatory journalism. The one thing we wanted to show was how important The Paris Review was to him. It was the glue that held him and his work together. In fact, he was fund-raising for it up until the night he died. It had some of the best American writers of his and other generations.”

    Although Plimpton was known here for his busy social life and his love of fireworks, his heyday was a few generations removed from the East Hampton of Mr. Brooks’s youth. “It was such a different world than the world I grew up in, it was hard to relate to it.” Still, he said, “It is easy to romanticize the writers of that era, especially how much fun they had.”

    “He looked for any excuse to throw a party, have the Grucci family light some fireworks, whenever he could. He could go to five parties a night, and usually did.”

    The film culled some 50 interviews and a vast amount of archival footage, including Plimpton on the road with Robert F. Kennedy the day before Kennedy was shot and killed. All of that material “made it really difficult to edit, there was so much. You almost prefer to work with less.”

Michael Halsband, Director:

“Growing Farmers”

    Michael Halsband is well known as a still photographer, but he has a number of music videos, commercials, and documentaries to his credit. His 18-minute film “Growing Farmers” tells the story of a new breed of young farmers who have come to the East End from desk jobs or other careers out of a commitment to locavore growing and eating and a way to find more meaning in their work.

    Mr. Halsband said being a part-time resident of Water Mill for 37 years and seeing the changes over time made him realize the importance of keeping the area’s traditions alive. The Peconic Land Trust has been helping these younger farmers find preserved land to buy or lease to keep their dream alive.

    “It’s so fundamental to the area — farming and agriculture — directing and co-producing the film was a great fit for me.” It was also a bit of a relief, he said, after spending a stressful time in India on a previous project.

    “I took everything I learned from that experience to this experience. I knew what we needed up front and needed at certain times,” in terms of resources and financial backing. “There was so much fresh energy from the farmers, everyone kept saying how much fun they were having.”

    The film visits a free-range chicken farmer on the North Fork, Sang Lee Farms, which has developed into a large distributor of lettuce and other produce; a Jamaican farmer growing his native staples, the wheat farmers from Amber Waves in Amagansett, and others.

    The only challenge in making the film was choosing where, of all the spectacular East End settings, to shoot.

    In the end, what Mr. Halsband has taken away from the experience is that “Life is important and happiness is important.  These are people looking for things less about commerce and more about a better quality of lifestyle, and food as essential element of being healthy and happy. Cheap food isn’t good food, and people are starting to realize that.”

Jack Heller, Producer:

“Refuge”

    Jack Heller, a part-time resident of Southampton for most of his life, realized about three years ago that making films here in the winter made sense not just for his bottom line but also as a boost to the off-season economy.

    “I noticed how quiet it was here in the winter and spoke to the local business people, who were marvelously supportive of my filmmaking in offering locations, catering, and other help. We just finished the third movie we’ve made in the last three years.”

    His latest film release, “Refuge,” which he produced with Dallas Sonnier, was directed by Jessica Goldberg from a play she’d written. The film often feels like a play in its sometimes claustrophobic attachment to the house where the heroine, Amy, lives as caretaker to her younger siblings after their parents abandon them. Yet the exterior shots are familiar: Catena’s market, long views over Meadow Lane, back roads that look deceptively like Anytown, America, but are immediately recognizable as South Fork locations. All the exteriors — the Blue Color Bar, the Hess station, the Princess Diner, and others — are in Southampton. Mr. Heller, who graduated from film school at the University of Southern California in 2004, and his crews do their interior shooting at East Hampton Studios.

    He has been making films since 2008 and has 15 in various stages of development. He said he likes to film here, both in helping train those interested in filmmaking and sometimes finding undiscovered talent among the extras. In the case of “Refuge” he has caught lightning in a bottle with the current “it” girl Krysten Ritter and Brian Geraghty, known from “The Hurt Locker.”

    He is looking forward to the festival screening for many reasons, one of which is being “able to see the film with the people I made it with,” all of whom are excited to take part in the screening. “Our crew becomes a family. There are no star turns, everyone sits at a communal table when we eat.” It’s difficult to understand the story of a film while being involved in the day-to-day making of it, he said. “It will be just a fun thing for them to see it come to fruition.”