Filmmaker and teacher Richard Rogers devoted decades of his life to making a film about himself, an autobiographical undertaking that allowed him to explore his mixed feelings about his career, his family and his life. It wasn’t an easy project: “Why is it so hard to make a film about yourself?” he wondered aloud, convinced of the camera’s utility as a tool for self-examination but unable to find the meaning he sought in his own story. Rogers died in 2001 with his film still incomplete until his widow, photographer Susan Meiselas asked his former student Alexander Olch to make a film out of the great amount of film that Rogers left behind.

In his director’s statement for The Windmill Movie, Olch metaphorically connects the film footage Rogers left behind (including old Super 8 footage his father shot) to the bits of past lives that can be found at a flea market. It’s an apt analogy as Olch stitches together a quilt that binds together his mentor’s images with new scenes shot with actors to pay homage to Rogers’ interest in fiction film making as well as to illustrate the challenges of telling a true story when that story is your own and you’re not quite sure what the truth in it is. Between his own experience in semi-autobiographical film in My Dinner with Andre and his friendships with both Rogers (who was often teased about his physical resemblance to the actor) and Meiselas, Wallace Shawn is a perfectly-cast surrogate for Rogers, his scenes adding an extra layer of other-worldliness to the film.

The Windmill Movie artfully captures Rogers’ lifelong quest to find meaning, aware of the privilege given to him simply by the luck of having been born into a family with plenty of means but unsure of how to move beyond that, if it was even possible. His upbringing is a key piece in the puzzle that was his life: his mother’s discouragement clearly affects Rogers but though he laments his inability to fit into the family as a banker or to make up for it by becoming as well-known and financially successful as someone like Steven Spielberg, the choices he makes intentionally move him away from any chance of falling into either of those sorts of roles. We may not all make films about ourselves, but who hasn’t spent at least some time fixating on the things we aren’t?

Olch’s tremendous respect for his former teacher informs every frame that makes it to screen, but The Windmill Movie isn’t meant to be a direct biography. Instead it’s an intriguing experiment in personal storytelling that’s sometimes softly dreamy and sometimes startlingly direct. The Windmill Movie opens at Northwest Film Forum on Friday, July 24; director Olchs will be in attendance on Friday and Saturday and Warren Etheridge will host a conversation after the 7pm Friday show. The Windmill Movie is accompanied by a screening of Rogers’ black and white short Quarry.

Also at NWFF: Lake Tahoe, director Fernando Eimbcke’s understated tale of a young man’s misadventures on a day that begins with him crashing his car into a tree. Accompanied by Taco Truck, a short documentary of a Westside Olympia taco truck.

The Grand Illusion continues their celebration of the Golden Age of Science Fiction with Five Million Years to Earth, the terrifying tale of the evil hidden away in human brains by Martians who’d invaded years ago to implant in human minds a ticking time bomb with the potential to wipe out humanity in favor of the Martian mind hybrid. Very scary and well worth seeing for any sci-fi horror fan.

Boys Don’t Cry presents a real-life horror, the tragedy of Brandon Teena, brutally murdered when the “friends” he clung to discovered that he was a trans person. Hilary Swank may never ge able to top the brilliance of her performance in this film. At Central Cinema.

Midnight at the Egyptian: Dazed and Confused, a surprisingly sweet-natured comedy about a group of high school kids in 1976 featuring new names for ’93 that include the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Milla Jovovich, Rory Cochrane, Ben Affleck, Parker Posey and Joey Lauren Adams.