Renowned British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock -- whose sometimes surreal songs about sex, death, fish, reptiles, spiders, prawns and other alternately odd and familiar subjects have earned comparisons to John Lennon and Bob Dylan -- will close this year's Indie Memphis Film Festival with a rare solo acoustic performance Oct. 15 at Malco's Studio on the Square.

Tickets to the Hitchcock show go on sale Sept. 25 at indiememphis.com.

The 12th annual festival -- which promises a lineup of more than 150 narrative and documentary features and shorts -- begins Oct. 8 with two Memphis premieres, "Shooting Robert King" and "That Evening Sun."

British director Richard Parry's "Shooting Robert King" -- titled "Blood Trail" when it debuted last year at the Toronto Film Festival -- is a documentary about an internationally lauded but locally little-known Memphis-based photojournalist, Robert King, who is known for his daring work in war zones. The film trails King over the past 15 years, as he travels through Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq and other trouble spots. King and producer Vaughn Smith are scheduled to attend.

Shot in East Tennessee, "That Evening Sun" stars Hal Holbrook as an aging farmer who finds betrayal and an old enemy on his family homestead. The cast includes Dixie Carter and Carrie Preston ("True Blood"), and the musical score is by Michael Penn and the Drive-by Truckers. Director Scott Teems and actors Barry Corbin (a regular on "One Tree Hill" and "Northern Exposure") and Ray McKinnon ("Deadwood"), who also is an associate producer of the film, will attend.

The festival closes with the concert -- dubbed "An Evening with Robyn Hitchcock" -- at 7 p.m. in one auditorium, and the locally produced feature "Lovely By Surprise" -- a tale of a struggling novelist (Carrie Preston, again) -- in another. The film's director, Kirt Gunn, will attend, along with select cast and crew.

Hitchcock -- who had small supporting roles in director Jonathan Demme's films, "Rachel Getting Married" and "The Manchurian Candidate" -- will be followed for much of his Memphis visit by documentarian Peter Gilbert ("Hoop Dreams"), who plans to create a film about the singer's trip. A performer who first came to prominence as the leader of the post-punk, psychedelic-influenced band The Soft Boys in the late 1970s, Hitchcock also wrote the score for the feature "Women in Trouble," which will screen at the festival.

In addition to the screenings of the silent movie classics "The General" (1927) and "The Man with a Movie Camera" (1929) with live accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra, other festival highlights include:

* Close to 50 local, regional, national and international features, including "Alexander the Last," the new film from Chicago director Joe Swanberg ("Hannah Takes the Stairs"); "Pontypool," an acclaimed Canadian horror movie about a deadly virus that spreads through human speech; "The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia," a documentary about a criminal mountain family whose most famous member is Jesco White, star of the documentary classic, "Dancing Outlaw"; "High Hair," from Oscar-nominated animator Bill Plympton; and a double dose of bizzaro sci-fi musicals from rising cult filmmaker Cory McAbee: "The American Astronaut," about an interplanetry trader's efforts to find a suitable mate to service the all-female population of Venus, and "Stingray Sam," about an outer-space convict and his sidekick, the Quasar Kid.

* Music documentaries, including "Wheedle's Groove," about the little-known pre-grunge funk-and-soul scene in 1970s Seattle; "Mellodrama," about the history of the Mellotron, the electronic keyboard that added spacey atmosphere to such famous recordings as "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Nights in White Satin," and Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir"; Augusta Palmer's documentary "The Hand of Fatima," in which "the daughter of Rolling Stone writer Robert Palmer travels from Mississippi to Morocco to investigate her father's transformative encounter with an ancient Sufi brotherhood, the Master Musicians of Jajouka"; and the local-focus docs, "Memphis Music@SXSW," shot during the South by Southwest festival, and "Memphis Movement -- Jookin': The Urban Ballet," about the city's most distinctive and eye-popping inner-city dance style.

* The annual and always entertaining local "Music Video Showcase," sponsored by Live From Memphis.

* A sneak preview of David Harris' made-in-Memphis MTV horror series, "Savage County."

* Plus, the return of Elvis to the Overton Park's historic Shell, when the famous "Elvis: '68 Special" -- the NBC-TV production commonly referred to as the "'68 Comeback Special" -- is screened in a free show at 7 p.m. Oct. 9 at the Levitt Shell.

INDIE MEMPHIS FILM FESTIVAL

The festival is Oct. 8-15 at Malco's Studio on the Square in Overton Square. Tickets to the Robyn Hitchcock concert are $20 each and go on sale Sept. 25 at indiememphis.com. Tickets for most individual screenings are $8 each, or $6 each for most matinees. Film tickets go on sale to the general public on Sept. 28, and to Indie Memphis members on Sept 25. Indie Memphis members get in free to most events.

Dates and times for all events will be announced over the next week at indiememphis.com.

Here's a list of all the features screening at the Indie Memphis Film Festival. Synopses provided by Indie Memphis.

COMPETITION FEATURES

"A plus D" (83 min. / US premiere / directed by Amber Sealey) When Alice and Dan meet, their connection is undeniable; it's clear they are meant to be. But are they ready for each other? Confined in their small London flat, they magnify their differences, create conflict out of nothing, and slowly tear each other down. Director Amber Sealey is scheduled to attend.

"Alexander the Last" (74 min. / Memphis premiere / directed by Joe Swanberg) A sensual and intimate portrait of a young marriage, illuminating the challenges of monogamy amidst myriad sexual and creative temptations. Director Joe Swanberg is scheduled to attend.

"Billy Was a Deaf Kid" (90 min. / regional premiere / directed by Rhett & Burke Lewis) The classic, I hate your guts, no wait, I like you, my brother is deaf, let's ride a couch down the street, love story. Directors Rhett and Burke Lewis are scheduled to attend.

"Children of Invention" (86 min. / Memphis premiere / directed by Tze Chun) Two young children living illegally in a model apartment outside Boston are left to fend for themselves when their hardworking mother disappears.

"Dear Lemon Lima" (87 min. / Tennessee premiere / directed by Suzi Yoonessi) As sweet and colorful as a snow cone, this delightful happy-sad confection follows an awkward Alaskan teen as she discovers her Yup'ik heritage while rallying her fellow misfits to compete in her school's Snowstorm Survivor competition.

"Easier With Practice" (104 min. / regional premiere / directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez) On a desperate road trip to promote his as yet unpublished novel, Davy Mitchell's life takes a surprising turn when he is seduced into a phone sex relationship with a mysterious woman named Nicole. Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez is scheduled to attend.

"It Was Great, But I Was Ready To Come Home" (61 min. / Memphis premiere / directed by Kris Swanberg) Annie tries to get over her recent breakup by backpacking in Costa Rica with her best friend Cam. Though traveling together, the two women realize they may be on separate trips. Director Kris Swanberg is scheduled to attend.

"Living Dark: The Story of Ted the Caver" (114 min. / regional premiere / directed by David Hunt) Based on the internationally popular "Ted the Caver" Internet legend, "Living Dark" tells the story of two estranged brothers, reunited for their father's funeral. Attempting reconciliation, the brothers stumble upon the sealed entrance to a cave, and are slowly forced to confront the true, nightmarish cause of their father's death. Director David Hunt is scheduled to attend.

"The Mountain, the River and the Road" (75 min. / Tennessee premiere / directed by Michael Harring) Stranded in a small town after a botched road trip, a young man finds love and himself. Director Michael Harring is scheduled to attend.

"St. Nick" (86 min. / Tennessee premiere / directed by David Lowery) The adventures of a runwaway brother and sister trying to survive on their own out on the plains of Texas. Director David Lowery is scheduled to attend.

"Stingray Sam" (62 min. / regional premiere / directed by Cory McAbee)A dangerous mission reunites Stingray Sam with his long lost accomplice, The Quasar Kid. Follow these two space convicts as they earn their freedom in exchange for the rescue of a young girl who is being held captive by the genetically designed figurehead of a very wealthy planet. Director Cory McAbee is scheduled to attend.

"That Evening Sun" (110 min. / Memphis premiere / directed by Scott Teems) See above.

COMPETITION DOCUMENTARIES

"All In: The Poker Movie" (98 min. / regional premiere / directed by Douglas Tirola) The story of poker, focusing on why one of our nation's oldest games has had a renaissance in the past few years and why for so many poker is the way to chase the American Dream. Director Douglas Tirola is scheduled to attend.

"Ghost Bird" (85 min. / regional premiere / directed by Scott Crocker) A cautionary tale about birders, ornithologists and the citizens of Brinkley, Ark., who are certain they keep seeing a woodpecker that's been extinct over half a century. Director Scott Crocker is scheduled to attend.

"God's Architects" (88 min. / Tennessee premiere / directed by Zach Godshall) The stories of five visionary builders and their enigmatic creations. With neither funding nor blueprints, these builders dedicate their entire lives to creating architectural worlds that for most of us exist only in the wilds of the imagination. Director Zach Godshall is scheduled to attend.

"The Hand of Fatima" (75 min. / US premiere / directed by Augusta Palmer) See above. Director Augusta Palmer is scheduled to attend.

"Invisible Girlfriend" (72 min. / Memphis premiere / directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin) Charles goes on a Quixotic journey through rural Louisiana on a big red bicycle, accompanied by his invisible girlfriend, Joan of Arc, to deliver a candle to a woman he admires. David Redmon and Ashley Sabin are scheduled to attend.

"Luckey" (84 min. / Tennessee premiere / directed by Laura Longsworth) Enabling sculptor Tom Luckey's artistic vision after his devastating fall through a window is a difficult proposition for Tom's divided family. The Luckeys must cross delicate lines drawn long ago by divorce and remarriage while Tom -- fully paralyzed but with wacky personality intact -- pursues building his biggest, most complicated sculpture ever.

"Mellodrama" (75 min. / Tennessee Premiere / directed by Dianna Dilworth) See above.

"Naturally Obsessed: The Making Of A Scientist" (60 min. / Tennessee Premiere / directed by Carole & Richard Rifkind) Mixing humor with heartbreak, this film tells a profoundly real yet intensely dramatic story about life in a molecular biology lab. Directors Carole and Richard Rifkind are scheduled to attend.

"Shooting Robert King" (79 min. / Regional premiere / directed by Richard Parry) See above.

"Strongman" (115 min. / Regional premiere / directed by Zachary Levy) "Stanless Steel" can leg-press a 10,000-pound dump truck, drive nails through boards with his bare hands, and bend pennies in his fingers. But as Stan reaches middle age, career disappointments and difficult personal relationships test his strength and force him to struggle with his weaknesses. Director Zachary Levy is scheduled to attend.

"Wheedle's Groove" (87 min. / world premiere / directed by Jennifer Maas) See above. Director Jennifer Maas is scheduled to attend.

"Zombie Girl: The Movie" (91 min. / regional premiere / directed by Justin Johnson, Aaron Marshall & Erik Mauck) A documentary about 12 year-old feature filmmaking sensation Emily Hagins and the exhilarating and heartbreaking two years she spent writing and directing her feature length zombie movie, "Pathogen." Director Erik Mauck is scheduled to attend.

SHOWCASE SCREENINGS

"45365" (90 min. / Tennessee premiere / directed by Bill & Turner Ross) The stories of a father and son, a young relationship, cops and criminals and officials and their electorate coalesce into a mosaic of faces, places, and events -- daily life in America.

"The American Astronaut" (92 min. / Memphis Premiere / directed by Cory McAbee) See above.

"The Garden" (80 min. / Memphis premiere / Directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy) The 14-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country's most blighted neighborhoods by growing their own food, feeding their families and creating a community. But now, bulldozers are poised to level this oasis. Academy-award nominee for Best Documentary Feature.

"The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle" (97 min. / Memphis premiere / directed by David Russo) When Dory loses his job at a data-management company and can only find work as a janitor, it looks like his life is going down the drain. To make matters worse, he and his toilet-cleaning colleagues become unwitting guinea pigs in a misguided corporate experiment. But as a strange new life takes shape inside him, Dory learns that sometimes you don't find meaning, meaning finds you.

"Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968" (60 min. / Tennessee premiere / directed by Bestor Cram & Judy Richardson) In Orangeburg, S.C., a peaceful student gathering on a college campus in 1968 resulted in the deaths of three youths. The film takes a hard, detailed look at this critical but underdocumented moment in the Civil Rights movement.

"Pontypool" (97 min. / Tennessee Premiere / directed by Bruce McDonald) See above.

"Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo" (90 min. / Tennessee premiere / directed by Bradley Beesley) A look behind prison walls to follow convict cowgirls on their journey to the 2007 Oklahoma State Penitentiary Rodeo. Part Wild West show and part coliseum-esque spectacle, it's one of the last of its kind -- a relic of the American penal system. Within this strange arena the prisoners become the heroes while the public and guards applaud.

"The Way We Get By" (85 min. / Memphis Premiere / directed by Aron Gaudet) The film begins as a seemingly straightforward story about "troop greeters" (senior citizens who gather daily at a small airport to thank the American soldiers departing and returning from Iraq), but then becomes an unsettling and compassionate story about aging, loneliness, war and mortality.

"The Wild And Wonderful Whites Of West Virginia" (87 min. / Regional premiere / directed by Julien Nitzberg) See above. Director Julien Nitzberg and producer Storm Taylor are scheduled to attend.

"William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe" (85 min. / Memphis premiere / directed by Emily & Sarah Kunstler) The directors explore the life of their father, the late radical civil rights lawyer, who fought for civil rights with Martin Luther King Jr. and represented the famed "Chicago 8" activists who protested the Vietnam War. When the inmates took over Attica prison, or when the American Indian Movement stood up to the federal government at Wounded Knee, they asked Kunstler to be their lawyer.

"Women In Trouble" (95 min. / regional premiere / directed by Sebastian Gutierrez) A serpentine day in the life of ten seemingly disparate Los Angeles women: a porn star, a psychiatrist, a flight attendant, a masseuse, a bartender, a mother, a daughter, a pair of call girls, etc. All of them with one thing in common: Trouble.

HOMETOWNER FEATURES

"The Conversion" (70 min. / directed by Edward Valibus Phillips) A feature edit of the Web series: When the television switchover goes horribly awry, the nation plunges into digital darkness. Director Edward Valibus Phillips scheduled to attend.

"On the Edge of Happiness" (72 min. / directed by Mark Jones) The made-for-web soap opera, presented for the first time on the big screen.

"Funeral Arrangements" (89 min. / directed by Anwar Jamison) When an aspiring music producer lies to his overbearing supervisor, he ends up at the funeral of a complete stranger, and in the middle of a hilarious adventure that will bring him closer to love and death. Director Anwar Jamison is scheduled to attend.

"Memphis Movement -- Jookin': The Urban Ballet" (80 min. / directed by Ellis Fowler) See above. Director Ellis Fowler is scheduled to attend.

"Memphis Music @ SXSW" (55 min. / directed by Clayton Hurley) See above. Director Clayton Hurley is scheduled to attend.

GLOBAL LENS

"Getting Home" (101 min. / China / directed by Zhang Yang) In this soulful and humane comedy, Zhao, a middleaged construction worker, struggles to fulfill a dying co-worker's last wish to be buried in China's Three Gorges region. Setting out with his colleague's body in tow, Zhao travels hundreds of miles across extraordinary countryside, encountering a number of colorful adventures and characters -- and even discovering love in some unlikely quarters.

"I Am from Titov Veles" (102 min. / Macedonia / directed by Teona Strugar Mitevska) Set in the quaint but scarred town of Veles, three sisters long to escape the suffocating environment of their dying community. Burdened by memories of their late father, each chooses a different path: Sapho struggles to secure a visa to Greece, Slavica desperately searches for a rich husband, and Afrodita harbors hopes for love and children.

"Mutum" (86 min. / Brazil / directed by Sandra Kogut) Thiago is a sensitive and imaginative boy living on a small, hardscrabble farm in a remote region of Brazil. His life is filled not only with curiosity and youthful discovery, but also the reality of his parent's unhappy marriage and his father's abuse -- all of which are one day changed by a chance encounter and unexpected gift.

"My Time Will Come" (90 min. / Ecuador / directed by Víctor Arregui) A predawn murder sets in motion a series of interlocking tragedies that eventually find their way to the city morgue's brooding Dr. Arturo Fernandez. Physically and emotionally isolated from the world around him, Arturo develops an oddly intimate relationship with the personal lives of his cases, gradually forcing him to confront his connection to the living, and the dead.

"The Photograph" (98 min. / Indonesia / directed by Nan Achnas) Always short of funds and bullied by her pimp, Sita convinces an elderly portrait photographer, Mr. Johan, to rent her a room. In failing health, Mr. Johan is desperate to find an apprentice to carry on his work before he dies.

"Possible Lives" (80 min. / Argentina / directed by Sandra Gugliotta) After her husband mysteriously disappears during a business trip to Patagonia, Clara embarks on a desperate mission to find him. During her search, she makes a startling discovery: a man with an uncanny resemblance to her spouse, but with another name and a wife.

"Sleepwalking Land" (97 min. / Mozambique / directed by Teresa Prata) In the midst of Mozambique's devastating civil war, Muidinga, an orphaned refugee, wanders the countryside in search of his mother. His only companion is an elderly storyteller, and the only guide to finding his mother is a dead man's diary.

"Song From The Southern Seas" (80 min. / Kazakhstan / directed by Marat Sarulu) Two couples, one Russian and one Kazakh, live side by side in relative harmony in a beautiful yet semidesolate region of the Great Steppe. But when the fairskinned Russians give birth to a boy of decidedly darker skin, fifteen years of suspicion and acrimony arises between them, and can only be resolved by an ironic twist of family and fate.

"Those Three" (80 min. / Iran / directed by Naghi Nemati) Just one day from completing their military training, three conscripts desert their camp and escape into the frozen wilderness of Northern Iran. Travel through this mountainous, snowbound region is dangerous, but "those three" opt for the independence it promises and must now forge their way through an uncertain landscape, with only friendship to see them through.

"What A Wonderful World" (94 min. / Morocco / directed by Faouzi Bensaïdi) Souad is a prostitute whose best friend is Kenza, a tough traffic cop. Kamel is a stony-eyed contract killer who receives his hit orders via the Internet; he is also Souad's favorite customer. When Kenza falls in love with Kamel, the two begin a bizarre courtship doomed by their disparate lines of work.

OTHER FEATURE SCREENINGS

"Elvis: '68 Special." See above.

"The General" and "The Man with a Movie Camera." See above.

"High Hair." See above.