March is a busy month at the Brattle

Animator Bruce Bickford will be honored at the Brattle on Tuesday.

Three notable, eclectic cinema events are happening at the Brattle Theatre in the next two weeks.

Seattle-based animator Bruce Bickford, best known for his collaboration in the 1970s with Frank Zappa (Bickford’s work is featured extensively in the Frank Zappa videos “Baby Snakes’’ and “The Dub Room Special’’), travels to the Brattle Tuesday at 8 p.m. for “Prometheus Unhinged: The Films of Bruce Bickford.’’ The retrospective comes courtesy of the Balagan film series (Balagan is made up of four local filmmakers: Alla Kovgan, Jeff Silva, Stefan Grabowski, and Mariya Nikiforova). Bickford’s clay-animated films “showcase constant barrages of free-flowing, surreal, stream-of-consciousness imagery’’ that may be disturbing at times, but are ultimately fascinating. The program includes “Prometheus’ Garden’’ (1987, 16mm, 28 minutes); “Inversion Layer’’ (1997, 35mm, 10 minutes); and “Cas’l’’ (2012, 16mm transferred to video, 45 minutes).

For more information, go to www.balaganfilms.com.

The Brattle will also honor women in film later this month, screening several movies including Catherine Russo’s documentary “A Moment in Her Story.”

Honoring Egoyan

The Brattle also welcomes Canadian director Atom Egoyan, who is the guest of honor at the Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film’s 18th annual awards ceremony on March 18. To commemorate the director’s visit, the theater will screen several of Egoyan’s features, including “The Sweet Hereafter’’ (March 16); and a day-long Egoyan fest (March 17) with “Exotica,’’ “Adoration,’’ “Speaking Parts,’’ and “Next of Kin.’’ The Chlotrudis program begins at 5 p.m. March 18. Tickets are $20 ($15 for Chlotrudis and Brattle members), and can be purchased online at www.brattlefilm.org.

For more information, go to www.chlotrudis.org.

Women and film

For Women’s History Month, the Brattle presents WAM! (Women, Action and the Media) Boston Film Festival 2012, a day of films by and about women followed by question-and-answer sessions with the filmmakers on March 24. The program starts at 1 p.m. with “The Fruit of Our Labor,’’ short documentaries about Afghan women by an assortment of directors, followed by a series of short animated and experimental films. Catherine Russo’s feature documentary “A Moment in Her Story: Stories from the Boston Women’s Movement,’’ which chronicles the rise of feminism in Boston, screens at 7 p.m. Russo, who lives in Provincetown, spent 20 years researching and compiling archival material and interviews with local activists. Melissa Johnson’s “No Look Pass,’’ a coming-of-age story about a first-generation Burmese immigrant who attends Harvard University and strives to play professional basketball while coming out as a lesbian, screens with Ellen Brodsky’s short “What Do You Know?’’ at 9:30 p.m.

For more information, go to www.womenactionmedia.org.

World Film in Belmont

“Monsieur Lazhar,’’ one of this year’s nominees for the best foreign-language film Oscar, opens the 11th Belmont World Film series on Monday. Algerian actor Mohamed Fellag stars as an elementary school teacher who fled his native Algeria for Canada. The eight-film series continues for six consecutive Mondays at the Studio Cinema in Belmont (376 Trapelo Road) and two successive Thursdays. Other offerings are the Iranian film “Dog Sweat’’ (March 22), which intertwines the lives of six young Iranians, and “Cafe de Flore’’ (March 26), which stars Vanessa Paradis as the obsessive single mother of a boy with Down syndrome in Paris. Films will be followed by discussions with speakers.

For more information, go to www.belmontworldfilm.org.

Wild ‘West’

An independent film shot in Buxton and Hollis, Maine, in 2010, “40 West,’’ written by and starring Maine native Jennifer Porter, will have its area premiere March 20 at 8 p.m. at the Regent Theatre in Arlington and on March 22 at 7:30 p.m. at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge. Porter plays Maeve, a musician who, after a gig, finds herself trapped in a sordid East Texas motel room with her violent husband, Colin (Brian A. White), who’s just been released from prison. Colin’s sinister plan is interrupted by an unexpected visit from his jailhouse girlfriend (Kathleen Kimball) and the imminent arrival of her jealous, homicidal husband, played by Wayne Newton. (Yes, that Wayne Newton - in a small but attention-grabbing role.) Porter’s partner, Dana Packard, with whom she cofounded The Originals theater company and Honey Tree Films, produced, directed, and edited “40 West.’’

For more information, go to www.40WESTmovie.com.

Survivors’ stories

A film and music event honoring the survivors of the concentration camp at Terezin in the Czech Republic takes place March 21 at 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at Rhode Island College’s Sapinsley Hall at the Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts in Providence. It begins with “Phoenix From the Ashes,’’ a new music composition by Rhode Island College professor and concert pianist Judith Lynn Stillman, who was inspired by Holocaust poems and stories written by children at Terezin. Stillman enlisted Metropolitan Opera soprano Lori Phillips to read the children’s words. Immediately following the one-hour concert, the 2011 feature documentary “The Boys of Terezin’’ will screen. Sidney Taussig, 82, a Florida resident and Terezin survivor who helped to retrieve the buried stores, poems, and drawings after the camp was liberated, will attend and answer questions.

Tickets are free but must be reserved in advance: 401-456-8144. For more information, go to www.musicofremembrance.org.