Silk Screen, Pittsburgh's Asian-American film festival, continues this weekend with two dozen-plus movies in four locations.

Films are being screened at Pittsburgh Filmmakers' three venues -- Harris Theater, 809 Liberty Ave., Downtown; Regent Square Theater, 1035 S. Braddock Ave., Edgewood, and the Melwood Screening Room, 477 Melwood Ave., North Oakland -- along with The Andy Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky St., the North Side.

Admission is $8, $5 for students with valid IDs. Tickets can be purchased from www.silkscreenfestival.org or by calling 412-322-3300, ext. 114 or at the box office 30 minutes before showtime. Many of the movies are subtitled.

-- Post-Gazette movie editor

Barbara Vancheri

TODAY

HARRIS

7:30 p.m.: "Dark Matter" (China) -- A brilliant Chinese student comes to the United States to study the origins of the universe but spirals into darkness. Liu Ye, Meryl Streep and Aidan Quinn star.

REGENT SQUARE

7:30 p.m.: "Santa Mesa" (Philippines/USA) -- When a 12-year-old American boy is orphaned, he is sent to the Philippines to live with the grandmother he has never met.

9:30 p.m: "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" (USA) -- Estranged from her family due to a childhood indiscretion with her white brother, a Korean adoptee seeks to regain a sense of home by exploring ties with the Asian Americans she meets in her new apartment building. But her brother shows up, stirring up old feelings.

WARHOL

7:30 p.m.: "The Warped Ones" (Japan) -- Black-and-white portrait of youth culture gone wild, starring Tamio Kawaji (also known as Tamio Kawachi) as a punk enthralled by wild Western music. After being sent to jail, he becomes part of a lawless trio in this 1960 release that's part of Japanese Nikkatsu Action Cinema. Mark Walkow, a graduate of Seneca Valley High School, will provide digital subtitles for these super-stylized action films.

9 p.m.: "Glass Johnny: Looks Like a Beast" (Japan) -- Jo Shishido becomes the unwilling savior of a simple-minded prostitute on the run from her pimp in this 1962 film. Notable for the appearance of Izumi Ashikawa, later used by animator Hayao Miyazaki as a model for his anime heroines.

MELWOOD

8 p.m.: "Ploy" (Thailand) -- Psychological drama in which one hotel and three strangers -- a husband and wife back in Bangkok for a funeral after seven years in the United States, and a young woman named Ploy -- add up to jealousy and big trouble.

FRIDAY

HARRIS

7:30 p.m.: "Valu" (India) -- A village tradition of letting a bull loose in God's name has had dire consequences, so a dashing young forest officer is called in to help in this fable-like film.

9:30 p.m.: "The Home Song Stories" (Australia/Singapore) -- Tony Ayres wrote and directed this semi-autobiographical tale about his mother, a glamorous Shanghai-born nightclub singer struggling to survive in Australia with her two children. Joan Chen stars.

REGENT SQUARE

7:30 p.m.: "Never Forever" (South Korea/USA) -- Vera Farmiga, who was torn between two men in "The Departed," finds herself in that situation again when a scheme to save her marriage and husband has unintended consequences.

9:30 p.m.: "Option 3" (USA) -- When a man escapes to a restaurant bathroom to dodge a question from his girlfriend, he returns to find her cell phone. A stranger on the other end sends him on a search for her through the streets of San Francisco.

WARHOL

7:30 p.m.: "A Colt Is My Passport" (Japan) -- Jo Shishido is a cool-headed killer desperate to get out of town after pulling off a hit with his partner, which sets up a high noon face-off.

9 p.m.: "Plains Wanderer" (Japan) -- Akira Kobayashi plays a drifter-cowboy traveling Japan's back roads and, just like the Western cowboys, siding with the local folks and winning the heart of the local maiden.

MELWOOD

8 p.m.: "The Edge of Heaven" (Turkey) -- When a lonely widower meets a prostitute and offers to let the fellow Turkish native live with him in exchange for low rent, he sets off a chain of events for them and their offspring.

SATURDAY

HARRIS

4 p.m. "Tuya's Marriage" (China) -- Tuya is a Mongolian desert herder who has a disabled husband, two children and 100 sheep to care for. When she injures her back, she decides to divorce her husband on paper and look for a spouse who can support the whole family. Winner of the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.

6:30 p.m.: "The Home Song Stories"

9 p.m.: "Ploy"

REGENT SQUARE

5 p.m.: "Tie a Yellow Ribbon"

7 p.m.: "Ping Pong Playa" (USA) -- A Chinese-American slacker clings to his dreams of a career in the NBA until his parents are injured and he must defend his family's ping-pong prowess. Q&A with actor/co-writer Jimmy Tsai.

MELWOOD

6:30 p.m.: "Half Moon" (Iran) -- A Kurdish musician, in the twilight of his life, must lead a dozen of his sons to Iraq for a concert -- "a cry of freedom" -- to celebrate the fall of Saddam Hussein and the end of his repression of Kurdish music. Along the way they find sublime visions, brutality and transformative power.

8:30 p.m.: "Takva: A Man's Fear of God" (Turkey) -- A man of faith is rewarded for his devotion, only to find his beliefs challenged by his new prosperity in this Turkish drama.

SUNDAY

REGENT SQUARE

3 p.m.: "Santa Mesa." Q&A.

5:30 p.m.: "Option 3." Q&A.

8 p.m.: "Never Forever." Q&A.

HARRIS

6 p.m.: "Chop Shop" (USA) -- Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco), a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body repair shop in a sprawling junk yard on the outskirts of Queens. He tries to make a better life for himself and his 16-year-old sister and begins to save his money to buy a mobile-food van. Q&A.

8:30 p.m.: "Valu"

MELWOOD

6 p.m.: "A Gentle Breeze in the Village" (Japan) -- Fusako Kuramochi's manga tale inspired this story about a rural Japanese school girl smitten by a handsome new arrival from Tokyo.

9 p.m: "5 Centimeters Per Second" (Japan) -- The title of this animated movie refers to the speed of falling cherry-blossom petals or, as many reviewers have pointed out, the ephemeral nature of youth. Anime filmmaker Makoto Shinkai presents this story, about lovelorn characters, in three visually striking segments.

All question and answer sessions are subject to the availability of the speakers, many of whom are traveling from overseas.