The Stranger’s suggestions for today and tomorrow at SIFF:

SUNDAY MAY 27

11 am, Neptune: Go see Never on a Sunday, an entertaining Mexican take on Weekend at Bernie’s.

1:30 pm, Egyptian: If you’ve already seen the excellent Girls Rock! (at SIFF Cinema, 1:45 pm), check out The Island, an awesome movie about an acetic Russian monk. Bradley Steinbacher liked it. Bradley Steinbacher liked a movie about an ascetic Russian monk. Go.

4 pm, Northwest Film Forum: The Stranger’s classical & avant critic, Christopher DeLaurenti, endorses the 1992 Henning Lohner/John Cage film One¹¹ and 103. If you want something a little less heady—or you already have the DVD—check out the subtle commentary about racial relations vis-a-vis jump rope in Doubletime. I believe both directors will be in attendance. (Don’t bother with Rescue Dawn—you’re better off renting Little Dieter Needs to Fly; and previously rumored guest Werner Herzog will not be in attendance.)

Early evening: It’s a tossup. I’ll be at Bamako (Pacific Place at 6:30 pm), because I haven’t seen it yet and I was totally enchanted by SIFF Emerging Master Abderrahmane Sissako’s 2002 film Waiting for Happiness (playing in the fest tomorrow). Sissako won’t be in attendance, however, presumably because he’s on the jury at Cannes. And the movie’s opening at the Northwest Film Forum later in the summer. Other excellent options in this slot are Manufactured Landscapes, about a photographer drawn to scenes of human-inflicted devastation (Harvard Exit at 7 pm, filmmaker in attendance) and the local-interest option King of Kong (Egyptian at 6:30 pm, about the fierce battle for the title of top Donkey Kong player in the world.

9:15 pm, Pacific Place: You’re going to need to check out Exiled, Honk Kong filmmaker Johnny To’s gunslinging ode to the spaghetti western. But it’s got a big-name US distributor, and you could see it in theaters later this summer. For a lower-profile film, go with the first-person doc A Walk into the Sea (Northwest Film Forum at 9:15 pm, filmmaker in attendance), about the sad but not entirely shocking demise of one of Andy Warhol’s discarded lovers. It has distribution, but I haven’t heard any firm dates for Seattle.

Neptune, midnight: Strictly for caffeinated passholders: Severance opens next Friday in Seattle, so regular folks need not glue their eyelids open tonight. But the punning British horror-comedy with a The Office twist is screechingly funny and—this is what really won me over—it features this enormous wheel of cheese for no reason at all.

MONDAY MAY 28:

11 am: I wouldn’t, if I were you. What good are holidays if you can’t sleep in for hours? Perhaps anticipating this, SIFF has scheduled a bunch of repeats for this slot: additional screenings of Severance, Monster Camp, Paris Je T’Aime, Fish Dreams, and Doubletime—at the Neptune, Egyptian, Harvard Exit, Pacific Place, and SIFF Cinema, respectively.

1:30 pm, SIFF Cinema: See the graphic and shocking The Devil Came on Horseback (the main American subject and one of the filmmakers will be in attendance), about the genocide currently in progress in Darfur, from the directors of The Trials of Darryl Hunt.

4 pm, Neptune: If you didn’t shell out for the gala screening on Saturday, now’s your chance to catch A Battle of Wits, starring Andy Lau as the 4th-century warrior Ge Li.

7 pm, Egyptian: The Fly Filmmaking Challenge has loads of potential this year, with Dayna Hanson, Matt Daniels, and Lisa Hardmeyer set to premiere their made-to-deadline shorts films.

Maggie Brown (of Lynn Shelton’s We Go Way Back) stars in Hanson’s entry and Northwest Film Forum programmer Adam Sekuler edited Daniels’s movie, so basically the entire Seattle film scene (and a decent portion of the modern dance scene) should turn out. (I can’t go, unfortunately. Happy birthday, Gabey!)

Late evening: Documentary fans should seek out Crossing the Line (Neptune at 9:15 pm), by the North Korea-obsessed filmmaker who brought us the fascinating A State of Mind. If you’re into experimental work, the Argentine film The Aerial (Northwest Film Forum at 9:30 pm) is pretty cute, if somewhat derivative. A friend of mine used to say she’d go to any SIFF film with me except the ones about street urchins. Here’s the one you’ll want to avoid this year, C.—another film from Argentina, helpfully entitled Glue.