Three Jim Thorpe residents’ works will screen Sunday during the last day of the eighth Jim Thorpe Independent Film Festival, held at Mauch Chunk Opera House on West Broadway.

Seventeen blocks of films will screen over the four-day JTIFF, which starts tonight with the feature “Alma and the Wolf.” The “Local Heroes” block runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday.

Director Frankie J. Gallagher’s music video for bluegrass band Serene Greene’s “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind,” a Dolly Parton cover, screens third among the 10 “Local Heroes” titles. Short film “Ad-Lib,” featuring the work of cinematographer Rachel Alexander, screens fifth.

Music video “Before the Snow,” a track from the clip’s co-director and screenwriter Joshua Finsel’s debut solo album “No Honey,” closes out the “Local Heroes” block.

The festival, channeling the Molly Maguires’ rebellious spirit, has a “Jim Thorpe Loves Philly” theme this year. With an “Eyes and Minds Wide Open” credo, JTIFF boasts 10 feature films — including three 2025 SXSW world premieres — and 64 short films.

The JTIFF, featuring films of various genres, culminates with an awards ceremony and closing-night party at Ouros. For all festival information, visit jimthorpeindiefilmfest.com.

Gallagher, also a screenwriter/co-producer on “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind,” was in front of the camera during her time as a Kutztown University student.

“I dabbled for years after and most recently after COVID, I got more serious about storytelling and art,” she said.

“Humanity,” Gallagher’s short film, won the 2022 Spirit of JTIFF Award. After wrapping her dad’s memorial video, “I needed something to help me through my grief. I remembered something he told me: Never give up on my dreams.”

Gallagher, whose first love was music, “went to Kutztown to be an MTV DJ. Since those dreams were over, I figured I’d repurpose them into a music video.

“Michael (Johnson) from Serene Greene gave me the go ahead,” she continued. “I wanted to toy with a music video and stop motion, and the song spoke to me. I love collage, so I chose it.”

The director, who worked on the clip digitally and shot the band at the opera house, taught herself how to edit. Though not the best editor, “I hope I become an ace at it over time.”

Gallagher, who has not yet entered the clip in other festivals, hopes viewers wonder “if art feels anything. I wonder if art longs for us, or for itself or more art.”

Director Peter Vu Dien’s LGBTQ drama “Ad-Lib,” for which Alexander serves as co-producer, was shot on 16 mm in the Czech Republic via a study-abroad program in Prague.

Alexander, a media and communication major at Allentown’s Muhlenberg College, has directed projects such as 2023 award-winning experimental short film “Seen Not Heard — Heard Not Seen” and the 2024 music video “Nosebleeds.” Both enjoyed festival runs.

“Ad-Lib,” in which two acting-workshop participants become infatuated with each other, had its first festival screening at the Greater Lehigh Valley Film Festival in March.

Cinematography, Alexander said, “plays a big role in this film because we intentionally used a lot of close-ups to convey the wide range of emotions of Paul, the main character.”

The film, Alexander added, “is mostly handheld, lending to the fast-paced nature of the story and following the characters through this acting exercise.”

Alexander hopes viewers connect with the characters, as “we have all been in a situation where we feel we don’t fit in and are trying to find ourselves while connecting with others.”

Finsel, co-founder of bluegrass/dirt-rock/folk band Free Range Folk, has attended every JTIFF. Each year, the singer-songwriter/musician has told himself “how cool it would be to be a part of it. There’s a creative spark that ignites and is alive up and down Broadway.”

Two songs, both in the same key, bonded to form what would become “Before the Snow,” whose video Finsel filmed with wife Amber and Daedalus Productions’ Dennis Patrick.

One song, Finsel said, “was about floating in the Lehigh River and kind of becoming the river. The other was about an anxious Appalachian Trail through-hiker with a racing mentality that keeps him from seeing the magical details of being with nature.”

The final result, Finsel noted, “became a river meditation interrupted by a daydream of meeting a talking daisy flower, but being in too much of a hurry to experience the miracle.”

In the video, a winter sprite (actress/model Izzy Shellhammer) cajoles a traveler (Finsel) to stay ahead of the impending change of autumn into winter.

Finsel approached editing “like a surrealist filmmaker of the 1920s, creating a dream using juxtaposition and non-linear bits of narrative cuts and color.” He hopes viewers want to watch “Before the Snow” multiple times.

“Every time I watch it, new interpretations come to light,” he said. “That is the beauty of abstraction and surrealism: the meaning of the art is partly up to the viewer and can change based on individual circumstances, which makes it therapeutic in a sense.”