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In 1979, Ellen Kohner Hunt decided to bring an independent film festival to the mountains. Today through Saturday, Aspen Film presents the 45th anniversary of the festival she started.

A slate of 17 films, including documentaries, feature films and animated movies from all over the world, is planned this week for Aspen Filmfest. All screenings will be held at the Isis Theatre.

“Forty-five years is a really exciting milestone for us,” said Susan Wrubel, executive and artistic director of Aspen Film, the presenting entity. “It’s really a showcase of independent, foreign language, art house documentaries and this year we have a really nice mix of animated films as well.”

Wrubel attends most of the major film festivals in the world from Telluride to Toronto and cherry-picks her favorite films. She starts the process at the Sundance Film Festival in January. She attends the Cannes Film Festival in May and the Tribeca Film Festival in June, all the while seeking out films for the festival.

“We’re very fortunate in the caliber and the quality of the films that we have this year,” Wrubel said.

For the first time in the festival’s history, a “community day” is scheduled on Sunday, with two free screenings — an animated film at noon from Dreamworks, “The Wild Robot” (2024), to be followed Steve Martin’s classic comedy from 1979 (the same year the festival started), “The Jerk,” at 4 p.m.

Register for the free screenings at aspenfilm.org. “The Wild Robot” has a 100% favorability rating on Rotten Tomatoes and many critics are predicting it will win an Oscar for Best Animated Film. The online site Awards Watch called the film “an animated triumph destined to become a classic.” The movie will be released nationally on Sept. 27.

The festival kicks off today with a documentary that was previewed at Sundance called “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story.” The film chronicles how Reeve got into the film business despite being encouraged to not pursue an acting career, his roles as an actor, the accident on a horse that left him paralyzed, his post-paralysis life as an advocate for the disabled and his philanthropic work.

On Wednesday, the festival kicks into gear with three to four films a day for the rest of the week.

“Our matinees are not to be overlooked,” Wrubel said. “Some of our strongest films are matinees.”

Wednesday’s first film is “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which won several awards at Cannes this year. It was shot in secret in Iran and is a political thriller. Germany recently selected it as the film that will represent it as Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards.

The film “Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” will screen at 5 p.m. Wednesday. The film had its world premiere at Tribeca and showed at Telluride. It chronicles the rise, fall and difficult revival of the Denver landmark restaurant, Casa Bonita, which was purchased by “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Director Arthur Bradford will be present for a Q&A. The 2003 South Park episode “Casa Bonita” is considered one of animated series’ classics.

Wednesday concludes with a documentary that also premiered at Tribeca, “Checkpoint Zoo.” Director Joshua Zeman will be present for a Q&A. Zeman learned that there was a zoo sitting on the border of Russia and Ukraine; the film chronicles how a team of volunteers rescued close to 5,000 animals from it.

Thursday starts at noon with an animated feature called “Flow.” The film has no dialogue. It’s about a group of animals who have to cohabitate together after a flood has wiped out their habitat. The main characters are a cat, a lemur and a golden retriever. The film is about friendship and collaboration. It played at Cannes to rave reviews.

At 2 p.m., another film that premiered at Cannes will screen: “Santosh.” It’s about a woman whose police officer husband is killed. She is told that if she takes over his job, she can stay in their house. Her first assignment as a police officer is the murder of a 14-year-old girl.

Next on Thursday, at 5 p.m., is the screening of “A Real Pain.” It is directed by and stars Jesse Eisenberg and co-stars Kiernan Culkin, fresh off his star-making turn in HBO’s “Succession.”

“It’s a lovely story,” Wrubel said. “It’s definitely a comedy, but it packs an emotional wallop.”

Thursday closes out with “Champions of the Golden Valley,” which is about a group of skiers in Afghanistan who, despite Taliban rule, climb the mountains every day with handmade skis for a single run down the hill. Producer Katie Stjernholm will be in attendance.

“It’s this really beautiful love letter to a peaceful time in Afghanistan,” Wrubel said. “You see people who were living freely and experience the effects of how politics have really invaded the culture and how they’ve managed to survive otherwise. It’s a ski movie that deals with refugees and audiences will see that what we do here in our privileged valley is something that people halfway across the world in a wartorn country work so hard and risk so much to experience in the same way. I think it’ll resonate here.”

Friday starts off with an animated film, “Memoir of a Snail.” The film is made in claymation by Oscar-winning Australian animator Adam Elliot.

“I really can’t say enough great things about ‘Memoir of a Snail,’” Wrubel said. “Everyone who’s seen it loves it, and it’s really a beautiful film for grownups. It is an R-rated animated film.”

At 2 p.m., “My Sunshine” will unspool. It’s a film from Japan about two junior high school kids. The boy is goalie for the hockey team but hates it. He has a crush on a girl who’s learning to figure skate. The coach decides they should do couples skating together.

“It’s really sort of a coming of age story set in another snowy climate,” Wrubel said.

Then at 5 p.m., the film “Unstoppable” plays. The film is based on the true story of Anthony Robles, a wrestler who won the 2011 NCAA individual wrestling national championship despite being born with only one leg. The film stars Jennifer Lopez and Don Cheadle. It recently appeared in Toronto and is receiving major Oscar buzz. Robles will be present for a Q&A.

At 8 p.m. comes “The Thicket,” a Western that stars Peter Dinklage, Juliette Lewis and Levon Hawke (son of actor Ethan Hawke). “It’s a really cool western, very surprising,” Wrubel said. “The film is gorgeous. Great script; the acting is excellent.”

Saturday kicks off with a documentary called “Last of the Sea Women” about a group of Korean women divers who are mostly in their 70s and 80s who are trying to pass on the tradition to younger women despite facing environmental danger from the Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan. One of the divers went in front of the United Nations and spoke and issued a plea to help save the oceans.

Malala Yousafzain (known as Malala), the Pakistani activist and youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate in history, came on board as a producer for the movie.

“Malala came on as a producer of the film because she just loved the activism that these women displayed at the General Assembly at the UN,” Wrubel said. “So it’s pretty inspiring.”

At 5 p.m. Saturday, another film from Sundance called “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin” will screen. It’s a film about a gamer named Matt Giblin who was born with a degenerative muscular disease and died at the age of 25. After his death, there was an outpouring of support for him from the gaming community and the film goes into the world of the video game that he used to play — as his avatar.

“Half the movie is done in a video game and you are seeing Matt’s avatar going through everything and they actually have the real dialogue between the characters in the video game,” Wrubel said. “The movie is mind-blowing. I tear up talking about it because it’s such an inspiring film.

“It’s truly amazing, the community that this guy created. He was a leader in the community. People really looked up to him and respected him, and this whole time his parents thought that he was this disabled kid that never knew love or real friendships and they were completely surprised and stunned and amazed to learn that he had this whole other life, that no one knew about, inside a game.”

Saturday ends with a surprise screening.

Wrubel was asked about her overall thoughts on the festival lineup.

“This curation of films really gives you glimpses into many worlds,” she said. “From Iran to India, to inside a video game to a zoo in Russia — we really open a window to the world that you don’t really see elsewhere, and a lot of these films you will not see in a movie theater.

“So I hope the takeaway is that people embrace some of these other cultures, appreciate what people in other parts of the world or cultures go through and come out changed somehow from experiencing these films.”

When asked if it was possible to identify a throughline or a theme, she said, “Perseverance — and never give up on your dreams.”

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