The curtains at the Alabama Theatre open a month earlier for this year’s
Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival.

The state’s biggest film festival is hitting the streets.

When the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival returns a month earlier for its 13th edition, it will offer a new venue unlike any other: an outdoor screen and stage.

The free area, Sidewalk Central will feature live music and comedy, as well as panels and one or two evening screenings. It will run all day Aug. 27 and 28 in conjunction with the annual downtown event, which shows more than 200 movies from local and out-of-state filmmakers. The festival had taken place in late September in previous years.

“We’ve tried a variety of things over the years,” said Chloe Collins, festival executive director, about finding a way to feed attendees on site. “This is providing a central hub for everybody to possibly be entertained, definitely get something to eat or drink, hang out for a while and cool off in the misting tent.”

Food vendors at Sidewalk Central will include Bottletree Cafe, Brick and Tin, Carmella’s Italian Ice, the Dreamcakes Bakery cupcake truck, the Cantina food truck, plus beverages from Buffalo Rock. Also available will be vegetarian options, beer, wine and frozen drinks.

The new outdoor hub will be just west of the Alabama Theatre, on a closed-off portion of 18th Street North between Third and Fourth Avenues.

(More on both the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival and Birmingham Shout.)

While the outdoor area will serve as a gathering place, it’s the indoor venues that will again serve as film oases from the brutal August heat. Sidewalk dropped a venue and shrunk the festival “footprint” considerably: All seven venues encircle a two-block area. (No more long walks or drives uptown to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Alabama Power headquarters or even the Birmingham Museum of Art.)

[Update July 11: The footprint is back to its typical size, because of a change of venues. The Harambe Room on Fourth Avenue North has been replaced by Alabama Power headquarters on Sixth Avenue North.]

The footprint has shrunk, but one major genre has spread out. Like 2010, both Sidewalk and gay/lesbian film festival Birmingham Shout will take place the same weekend. Shout screenings, which had all been at the Hill Event Center at the Alabama Theatre, will be interspersed throughout all venues in 2011. As before, a 1- or 2-day pass allows entrance into both Sidewalk and Shout screenings.

No lineup has been announced for either festival, though organizers plan to show previews of a few selections at the free monthly Sidewalk Salon at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Rojo on Southside. In addition, the Filmmobile will be stopping by. The blue bus from Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles is on a 6-week cross-country tour showing movies and providing filmmaking workshops.

Sidewalk itself has been on the move, having completed a 2-week online fund-raising campaign last week to bring in $20,682.

Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival takes place Aug. 26-28 downtown. Tickets are $10 for a single film up to $275 for a VIP pass and can be purchased online. For more information, visit the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival site.

Also:

• Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival Facebook | Twitter @sidewalkfilm

The Filmmobile will be a part of Sidewalk’s monthly Salon on Tuesday at Rojo.

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