IT'S 1977, and Michael Smith, an American Indian with a graphic arts background, is driving south from Seattle to a new job in Los Angeles when a car accident leaves him stranded in San Francisco. A set of coincidences follow, in which friends and strangers reach out to him. He never does leave. Instead, he builds one of the largest and most influential film festivals of its kind. The plot is far-fetched but the story is true.

San Francisco's American Indian Film Festival celebrates its 28th anniversary this week. (Smith organized the first one at the University of Washington in 1975.) Bracketing this year's program of more than 40 documentaries, features, and shorts are two slick, Hollywood-style dramas. Opening night premieres Coyote Waits, a murder mystery set on a Navajo reservation, based on Tony Hillerman's novel. Closing night offers a timely look at a case of endemic racism in the Canadian criminal justice system, Cowboys and Indians: The Killing of J.J. Harper, based on a 1988 shooting in Winnipeg and the subsequent fight against a police cover-up. Both films feature fine casts that include Adam Beach (Smoke Signals, Windtalkers).

The festival's docs take on the subject of rights and sovereignty, some of them broaching the formerly taboo subject of abuse (a legacy of the old boarding school system that forced children from reservations and into often abusive schools, to the detriment of both child and community). There's also an evening of awards featuring live entertainment from across the United States and Canada and a free screening coupled with a Christmas toy drive for the homeless.

One response to the problem of "invisibility" in this society has been, of course, the plethora of film festivals that continue to go up each year like an alternative skyline, an eclectic architecture of mirrors on the cultural landscape, reflecting us back to ourselves from innumerable angles. Invisibility remains a serious problem for American Indians, and the AIFF was an innovator in the use of film to build community pride and public awareness, creating a program that blazed a trail for later native film festivals across the United States and Canada.

"At that time," Smith recalls, "there was really no other model to look at. We were the model."

However, the exclusion of native peoples from the media landscape has seriously dogged the festival despite its steady development. "It has been a very hard growth," Smith confesses. "Along with trying to get funding, finding product, and building an audience, we've been fighting for visibility, although we are probably the second-oldest festival in San Francisco."

Smith says the latest census registers about 85,000 native people living in the Bay Area. "It's hard to explain to somebody from another country why there's so little interest in Native Americans. The only time we had major coverage was when we presented Robert Redford [in 1992]."

Latino Film Festival

Sylvia Perel, founder and director of the Latino Film Festival, opening its seventh annual program this week at the Castro Theatre, has crafted a festival that cultivates maximum exposure to the myriad lives and perspectives making up the incredibly diverse world of Latinos.

"What makes [the festival] so different," Perel explains, "is the variety, the concept of inclusion, of all aspects of history, from Spain to Native Americans, Amazonian Indians to Sephardic Jews in Turkey speaking Spanish. It's a very vast mix of cultures. [The festival] has a strong political view because we are including our own minorities and women. It's a very strong commitment to every single minority within the group."

The overarching theme of the series "Malaga in San Francisco" highlights films and documentaries from this year's Malaga Film Festival in Spain (many of them U.S. premieres). But there are several smaller series in the festival. One devoted to women features a documentary on women bullfighters, Out of the Shadow (Spain/Canada, 2001); a series celebrating gay and lesbian themes includes the Galician-language comedy Wedding Days (Spain, 2002) and the Los Angeles independent Sex, Politics and Cocktails; a Jewish series includes a profile of 20th-century writer and filmmaker Max Aub, Max Aub: A Writer in His Labyrinth (Spain, 2002); and a music and film one features Rogelio Paris's 1964 Cuban classic We Are the Music, recently screened at New York's Lincoln Center to much fanfare (in spite of visa hassles, Paris will be at the Castro screening). Other programs not to miss: the U.S. unveiling of a set of Brazilian silent films from 1929 with live accompaniment by Brazilian musicians, and the awarding of the first annual "Mocte" award to Hollywood producer Moctesuma Esparza (The Milagro Beanfield War, Selena).