After taking a short pause in their bi-monthly schedule to allow everyone a full recovery from the nine day movie marathon that is SXSW, the Avant Cinema Series is back with a sparkling bullet. The series featuring short experimental, avant-garde films and videos by regional filmmakers, curated by Austin Film Society programming director extraordinaire Chale Nafus and local filmmaker Scott Stark, presents its second night of films-that-you-won't-see-in-theaters tonight, yes tonight. A Dazzling Trio highlights the works of three prominent Austin filmmakers: Samantha Krukowski, PJ Raval, Rick Reed.

If we may be frank, this is a trio of badasses. Krukowski, a current faculty member in the department of Radio, Television and Film at UT, specializing in experimental media, film and video production, has been immersed in public art world for the better part of two decades. (Seriously, check out her c.v., it's impressive.) Through exploring the movement between digital and analog, virtual and actual forms, Krukowski has cultured an aesthetic that has drawn attention from film festivals across Europe, Asia and the Americas. For this outing she will be showing three films, all of which feature the fluid transition of form in a meditation on both aqueous and static subjects.

Raval has racked up quite a list of honorable back pats as well, most recently as the Director of Photography for the Sundance 2008 Grand Jury Prize Winning documentary Trouble The Water. He was named one of Filmmaker Magazines "25 New Faces in Independent Film 2006" following his work as d.p. on a string of hit films, including Room, Gretchen and Dirt, audience and critical darlings all. We don't have time to mention the long list of accolades he has garnered for screenwriting, directing and various other super cool skills, but we can tell you that the four films he has chosen for tonight all involve the shifting and shuffling of animated patterns. Get ready to be mesmerized.

Reed began composing electronic sounds using analog synthesizers in the late 70s, branching out into sound installations, film soundtracks and other art forms along the way. After getting a special nod from Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore (Thurston fricken Moore!) in 1996, Reed released his first official album and began to work with other recording artists and like minded souls on projects of widely varying scope and purpose. Reed will be spotlighting his most recent score for the film Capitalism: Child Labor, a film which was conceptualized and realized by independent cinema heavyweight Ken Jacobs, with whom Reed has been collaborating since 2004. The film recently won the Grand Prize at the Curtas Villa do Conde Film Festival in Portugal. Portugal, people!

Let us take this moment to again remind you how amazingly awesome the AFS is, and how incredibly inexpensive it is to join. If you haven't attended an AFS event, then make tonight's installment of the Avant Cinema Series your first, and while you're at it, sign up for a membership and start going to billions of films and film related events for peanuts on the dollar.