It's back for a second year and just in time.

For the next week and a half moviegoers won't have to choose between "Shall We Dance?" and "Surviving Christmas" when they head to theaters. The Milwaukee International Film Festival will showcase over 130 films from 35 different countries ranging from documentaries to Japanese animation from Thursday through Oct. 31, and it's guaranteed the films will have nothing to do with the Bennifer equation.

According to MIFF Executive Director Dave Luhrssen, one of the main goals of the festival is to give Milwaukeeans a chance to escape standard Hollywood fare without having to travel to the Cannes or Sundance Film Festivals.

"The basic idea is to bring a top-flight selection of films to Milwaukee," Luhrssen said. "We select films from around the world that are interesting and with merit."

Films will be shown at the Oriental Theatre, Downer Theatre, Times Cinema and for the first time this year, the Milwaukee Art Museum. Titles range from "Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space" — one of the festival's "Midnight Delirium" selections — to "Unconstitutional: The War on our Civil Liberties," a look at how the Patriot Act is affecting and interfering with U.S. citizen's everyday lives.

Shown in conjunction with "Unconstitutional" is "Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election," which explores what really happened in Florida four years ago.

Luhrssen pointed to the local "Gettin' Grown," a "coming-of-age story in the Milwaukee African-American community," as one of the prominent titles at the festival this year.

Directed by Aaron Greer — who was born and raised in the Brew City — and starring Isaiah Matthew — an eighth grader at Roosevelt School of the Arts — "Gettin' Grown" considers the daily challenges inner-city youth face.

The silent French horror film "The Fall of the House of Usher" is another highlight, set for Halloween weekend with Present Music performing an original score composed just for the film.

Returning this year is Mid-by-Midwest, a competition for regional filmmakers; according to Luhrssen over 1,000 submissions were received for the event.

The selections are divided into documentaries, fiction and shorts, the Mid-by-Midwest shorts organized by topic into specific programs, such as "True and Amazing Stories by and About Women" and "Cinema for the Ear." Each shorts program contains anywhere from four to nine films, ranging in length from two minutes to 59 minutes. The shorts program "Some Reality" gives an inside look into everything from slaughterhouses to the life of Adolph Hitler's companion.

New to MIFF is an educational program that works to expose high school students to independent film, and a student filmmakers' track will give local filmmaking students a chance to have their work viewed by the public.

In addition to the films, a numbers of panels and parties will be held to educate and entertain.

Filmmakers can learn how to fund their projects at "Spare Some Change for an Indie Filmmaker?," while at "Making the Grade" blossoming journalists can learn how to critique a film.

The parties give festival-goers a chance to let their hair down, with food, drink and live music scheduled for events such as "Jazz Orgy," "Step Back

Into Old Hollywood," "Red Hot Rockabilly Night" and "Dee-licious Vinyl: the Closet Classics Retro Halloween Ball."

The final festival party will be held at the Milwaukee Public Museum, where awards will be handed out for the Mid-by-Midwest competition and Mark Metcalf, aka Neidermeyer from "Animal House," will emcee.

Luhrssen said the film festival is a fitting event for Milwaukee, especially considering the international aspect of its programming.

"The idea of this is Milwaukee itself, being the city of festivals," Luhrssen said. "Milwaukee has always been an ethnic mosaic. Lots of ethnic communities exist that still have contact with their homelands."

MIFF Managing Director Dave Polacek agrees the festival is a good fit for the city.

"The city is hungry for something like the film festival," Polacek said. "The response we've gotten from the general public is 'Why haven't we had something like this sooner?'"

More information about the Milwaukee International Film Festival is available at www.milwaukeefilmfest.org.