Clear your calendars for late October: The 12th High Falls Film Festival has announced a four-day slate of films, parties, symposia and special guests, all set for Thursday through Sunday, October 23-26. This is the second consecutive HF3 event to feature a return to the women-themed programming that distinguished the festival when is started in the early 2000s.

The guests of honor will be Oscar nominee Virginia Madsen and her mother Elaine, an Emmy-winning poet, producer and playwright; Virginia produced Elaine’s documentary I Know A Woman Like That, HF3’s opening-night film, in which the elder Madsen interviewed a host of women across the age spectrum to hear the stories of their lives.

Other featured selections in the festival will include The Park Bench, a dialogue-based romcom that takes place largely on the titular piece of outdoor furniture; We Weren’t Given Anything for Free, a documentary that explores the memories of three Italian women who lived through the German occupation of their homeland during World War II; and Lies I Told My Little Sister, a family drama occurring during a Cape Cod vacation.

The weekend will also include a series of children-oriented short films curated by Ruth Cowing, the festival’s original programmer; and the return of Oscar-nominated screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal (Running on Empty), a 2005 winner of the festival’s Susan B. Anthony Failure is Impossible Award.

Tickets go on sale Sept. 19; for more information, including a complete schedule, visit the High Falls Film Festival website.