PORTLAND — The Bluestocking Film Series, featuring short films by women directors, will return to the St. Lawrence Arts Center on Sunday, Oct. 28.

“The shorts we’ll screen on Oct. 28 truly offer something for everyone — drama, comedy and even some singing sisters,” founder/organizer Kate Kaminski said.

Participating directors are from Maine, New York, Los Angeles and Germany (by way of the London Film School). 

Lisa Ferber and Lisa Hammer’s “The Sisters Plotz” is a 45-minute satiric musical featuring Eve Plumb (Jan Brady of “The Brady Bunch”). Though the Bluestocking’s tight two-hour schedule wouldn’t allow for the entire film to be shown, Kaminski worked out a deal with Hammer to screen a short teaser and then offer audience members a privately hosted online link enabling them to watch the full film later.

Also screening will be Tawny Foskett’s drama “Girls Who Smoke,” a thoughtful cinematic adaptation of a story originally heard on The Moth (and public radio show This American Life). Denise Plumb’s “Past Due” makes dark comedy out of the plight of a woman hounded by a diabolically persistent debt collector.

And Chantal Bertalanffy’s “Sisters” is a coming-of -age story that delicately tackles complex issues of race and half-sibling relationships. Also screening will be Mainer Kari Wagner-Peck’s hilarious “Do You Hover?” which confronts the problem of public restroom hygiene.

“The use of the word ‘bluestocking’ is intended to call to mind the power of female intellect and to signal that what the audience will see is a different kind of film from what is normally seen at the local multiplex,”  Kaminski said.

“We’re dedicated to screening films made by women that place women’s stories front and center and that portray women characters as capable and as complicated, as flawed and as conflicted as their male counterparts,” she said.

Screenings will begin at 7 p.m. Tickets, $9, are available via Brown Paper Tickets at stlawrencearts.org or at the door. Some of the featured filmmakers will take part in a post-screening question-and-answer session. The St. Lawrence Arts Center is at 76 Congress St.

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