NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS - As part of their monthly independent film series, the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and Friends of the Visual Arts will present an evening of three short animated films at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 1, in the Ledbetter Gallery of the Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House, 329 E. Main St. Admission is free and open to the public.

"We are pleased to share with the Nacogdoches community Paul and Sandra Fierlinger's 'Still Life With Animated Dogs' and 'A Room Nearby' as well as Torill Kove's 'The Danish Poet,'" said Christian Cutler, SFA director of galleries. "And we are especially grateful to R.G. and Ouida Dean for sponsoring the screenings."

The Fierlingers' films were both commissioned by PBS and are winners of The George Foster Peabody Award. The 30-minute "Still Life of Animated Dogs" centers around Roosevelt, Ike, Johnson and Spinnaker, the canine companions who helped shape Fierlinger's evolution as an artist and as a man. The 15-minute "A Room Nearby" focuses on five people telling their stories about solitude.

In Kove's 15-minute film, narrator Liv Ullmann explores the coincidental circumstances under which Kove's parents met--circumstance that involve a rainy summer in Norway, a slippery barn plank, a careless mailman, a hungry goat, a broken thumb, and a crowded train.

All three films are suitable for all audiences.

For more information, please call (936) 468-1131.