The three local features being shown in competition are clearly novice works but are not without interest. The most slickly accomplished of the lot is probably The Path Of Fear (9:30 p.m. Thursday), a promising effort from young East Memphis filmmakers Brad Ellis and Joey Watson. The film, which opens with an Edgar Allen Poe line -- "Is all that we see or seem/But a dream within a dream?" -- is basically a psychological horror film. When a psychology professor says to his class, "No, people, think deeper. This isn't some slasher film," he doubles as filmmaker speaking to audience, and though the line may be presumptuous, it isn't far from the truth. The Path Of Fear features solid performances from its three young lead actresses (Marie-Claire Hardy, Julianne Dowler, and Natalie Jones), all University of Memphis students, and conveys a nice feel for its high-school-to-college milieu. Local musicians Wil DeShazo and Jared Rawlinson of the band Dora offer a fine, atmospheric score.

The lengthy, ambitious Someday Central (7:30 p.m. Saturday), directed by Brett Cantrell, who has screened short films at previous Indie Memphis festivals, may be a bit too personal for its own good (piling on about five layers of eccentricity when two would suffice), but it does an admirably convincing job of bringing its not-quite-real world to life. The film also inspires considerable sympathy for its protagonist, a mute young man named Scarecrow Sullivan, who was struck by lightning as a baby and has been similarly unlucky ever since and who pines for his sister-in-law.

The final local feature in competition is General Sessions (12:30 p.m. Friday), a process-oriented, day-in-the-life report on the workings of the Shelby County General Sessions Court. The film, which follows two attorneys -- one a veteran returning to the Public Defender's office from private practice, the other fresh out of law school -- has the feel of TV drama, following its protagonists through a day in the system as they juggle cases. But the film is oddly devoid of any dramatic intrigue, resulting in an almost documentary-style look that devotes too much screen time to court procedures in which papers are shuffled and people stand around but nothing interesting happens.

Throughout the festival, other local shorts will be shown, as well as local films of all stripes, as part of an out-of-competition local-film series that will be conducted in the MPL Screening Room.