The nonprofit BendFilm is known primarily for its independent film festival each fall at venues around Central Oregon. But the last few years, the organization has made strides to spread its brand throughout the rest of the year.

“We’ve been heavy at it, I would say, the last four years,” said Todd Looby, executive director of BendFilm. “Every year, more and more opportunities come up, and we just get better at operating.” The latter includes, he said, figuring out how to make these other events work financially as well as where to fit in on a calendar chockablock with event offerings in a neighborly way, “making sure we slip in to add something as opposed to competing,” he said.

On the first and third Monday of every month at McMenamins, BendFilm has been hosting film showings, including “In Case You Missed It” re-screenings of BendFilm Festival fare such as “Rodents of Unusual Size.” The documentary about the hunt for nutria, AKA invasive, giant swamp rats from South America, won the Environmental Award at the 2018 festival. It also screened on Jan. 21.

However, there’s plenty on the horizon in February and March. At 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, BendFilm will host Best of the Festival Narrative Shorts. The screening at McMenamins features the animated film “Weekends,” a 2019 Oscars nominee about a young boy splitting time between the homes of his newly divorced parents. Also part of the shorts block are “What Happened to Evie,” an 11-minute thriller about a woman piecing together memories of a sexual attack, and the comedy “Gloria Talks Funny,” about a down-on-her luck voiceover actress aiming to reprise her most famous role.

Event horizon

In March, BendFilm celebrates women, in a similar spirit to Bend Women’s March, a monthlong celebration of women that includes the annual Muse Women’s Conference.

“Our screenings that month are going to be devoted to women-centric films, filmmakers, and … subjects of films where women are very strong characters or (there’s) a unique depiction of women in those movies,” Looby said.

On March 4 at McMenamins, “Roll Red Roll” will screen. The Nancy Schwartzman film took the $5,000 Special Jury Award at the 2018 BendFilm Festival.

On March 15 at the Tower Theatre, BendFilm will host a traveling program of short films called No Man’s Land Film Festival, a compilation of women-centric outdoors films, according to Looby.

On March 18, BendFilm and Scalehouse will partner for a repeat screening of “Meow Wolf,” a documentary by Jilann Spitzmiller and Morgan Capps, about a Santa Fe, New Mexico, artists collective that screened during the 2018 BendFilm Festival.

“We are looking for a way to make that weekend of March 15, 16, 17, 18, to basically be somewhat of a mini fest. Again, we’ll try to focus on women’s films, indoor-outdoor-related films,” he said. “We know people are traveling here to ski and other things, so I’d really like to test out showing a lot of movies there in one weekend in March to see what can happen next year as far as getting the outdoor crowd (and) people really focused on the women’s movement, women filmmakers.

Looby said that later in the spring, BendFilm hopes to roll out a new program, Movie and Dinner. Participants will view a classic film, then head somewhere nearby — possibly Joolz — to dine and have in-depth conversation about the film.

“Basically, on Tuesday afternoons at 3:30, everyone gets together for some sort of classical cinema. Classical could be anything from old to relatively new, but some film or genre or director that will provoke a lot of conversation,” Looby said. “(They’ll) have a meal and continue the conversation. … We want to foster and promote conversation about film, just between individuals, just using film as a starting point to create connection. I think food, obviously, is always a good way to connect people.”

With its second-chance screenings and other offerings, BendFilm helps to ease the uninitiated into the BendFilm waters. The festival, with its dozens of film screenings sprawled over a three-day period, can be daunting to newbies, Looby said.

“You know, fests can be a little bit intimidating in that we have over 80 different shows, and these pass things, and these tickets and standby,” Looby said. “For people who have navigated it once, it’s really easy, but (not) if you don’t know where to start.”

BendFilm also hopes to boost membership numbers with the added events, “Because members are integral to letting us do this kind of stuff,” Looby said. Membership does have its pluses.

“For basically every one of these non-festival screenings, we’ll always contact the whole membership list, and offer a limited amount of free tickets. Basically, a ‘Hey, the first 10 to respond get a free ticket’ kind of thing.”

Another perk: BendFilm keeps a DVD library of the many films — shorts, documentaries, comedies, dramas and more from around the world — that screened during past festivals. Library access comes with a membership.

The 16th annual BendFilm Festival is slated for Oct. 10 through 13, and the submission process began in early January. Just three weeks into the process, BendFilm had already received 115 submissions.

“They’re quickly and steadily coming in,” Looby said. “It’s rolling.”