Film Festival Harmony?

Here’s something to ponder this cinematic weekend in western Connecticut. As the Connecticut Film Festival in Danbury and the Litchfield Hills Film Festival in New Milford overlap, will the exclusive entities inevitably work in concert?

It’s not such a preposterous notion, this idea of friendly competition. By many accounts, Litchfield County’s reputed antiques industry often attracts traveling furniture and home accessory aficionados to many, not just one, of the area’s myriad dealerships.

However, if the phenomenon translates to the film fests is still unclear. But those who appreciate the independent and artistic spirit of these community events might find themselves soon sampling the fare of a film festival only two towns north, or south, depending.

Tom Carruthers, who runs the Connecticut Film Festival, has pulled together more than 60 films and more than a dozen film industry and new media workshops for a five-day extravaganza that began Wednesday and will continue until Sunday.

It’s a proverbial steal that for only $7.50, at 10:30 a.m. Saturday a budding Aaron Sorkin can sign up for “Screenwriting 101.” Taking such a class elsewhere, let’s say New York City, Mr. Carruthers said “would be about $50.”

And Frank Galterio, who with wife, Patrice Galterio, runs the Litchfield Hills Film Festival (formerly the Kent Film Festival, but moved to New Milford this year,) has really pushed the Nutmeg State angle of his event, noting that that the feature of “every night is a Connecticut filmmaker.”

The New Milford event began yesterday and Danbury Wednesday, but judging by the itineraries neither festival really calls action until today. With that, already a dilemma arises.

Mr. Galterio is a big fan of tonight’s Bank Street Theater showing of “The Fiction,” a movie by first-time movie maker Dan DiLeo. It’s the tale of a novelist whose writer’s block is so severe it drives him to madness.

“He did everything right,” said Mr. Galterio. “And for me to put it on Friday night, you know it’s good.”

Then again, because the night in Danbury’s Palace Theater belongs to a documentary about punk poet Patti Smith, Steven Sebring’s “Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” it may be hard for new wave hobos and elitists to resist.

So if it’s possible to balance schedules, to gauge which short films or feature films or workshops to embrace or to sacrifice, all the while factoring the Danbury-New Milford corridor, I’ll find out this weekend. And I still have to do my taxes.

“Patti Smith: Dream of Life” begins at 7 p.m., tickets for the film are $12.50, plus another $12.50 for the after party. “The Fiction” begins at 8 p.m., tickets are $9.

Stay tuned.