Finally, after three years of missing out, assistant professor of English Erica Benson was able to experience her first film screening with the Eau Claire Progressive Film Festival.

Benson, a big coffee drinker, is interested in the politics of coffee, was looking forward to the Tuesday showing of “Black Gold.”

“Unfortunately for many of us it’s just a bad time of the semester and it’s at a time when there is a lot of other stuff going on,” Benson said. “I have wanted to come in the past just haven’t been able to fit it in.”

The film, a documentary telling the story of Ethiopian co-op manager Tadesse Meskela following coffee beans from the raw bean and into mugs everywhere, is just one of many films that have already been shown at the festival, and will continue to be shown, from today through Sunday night.

The festival, now in its third year, began when professor of English Bob Nowlan set it up as a directed studies class. He sent e-mails out to his classes and advisees saying he was doing a film festival and that it was a good way to get one to three credits, festival director John Nicksic said.

The festival’s goal was, and still is, to attempt to advance awareness and activism in relation to a range of interconnected progressive issues, to contribute to the ongoing development of a local and regional progressive culture, and to enable people in the area to watch, listen to, and engage with a number of highly accomplished, powerfully provocative and urgently relevant progressive films that would not be readily accessible, Nowlan said in an e-mail. He hopes viewers take some hope and inspiration away from screenings and discussions that show they too can find ways to make a progressive difference in what they do in their lives.

Nicksic said film is a very popular medium and a great way to get people to get out on a Friday night or during the week and get them involved in issues.

“A lot of the videos we are showing this year are just interesting films and people may have heard of some of the films, maybe not, but a lot of the topics discussed are interesting . so we want people to get out and see the movies,” Nicksic said.

In order to make this a possibility, Nowlan and Nicksic spent a considerable amount of time researching films that might prove of interest and value. They then worked that number down, ranking and making selections, and then contact and negotiate with distributors and film makers. They also need to raise money to pay the costs involved for public performance rights with the films, arrange for facilities to be used, as well as promote and publicize the festival which costs approximately $5,000 a year. They must also be prepared to conduct post-screening discussions with the audiences, Nowlan said.

Although the process for getting the festival done has been relatively similar all along, this year the running of the festival will bring some changes, Nicksic said.

“We are getting local businesses involved,” Nicksic said. “Foodlums is sponsoring a few of our films, one of our films they will be bringing popcorn, for another they will be bringing in candy treats.”

Additionally, Nicksic and those who help with the festival decided to narrow the number of films down. They cut the number from about 40 films to 13.

“It was hard to get a large crowd every night because there’s so many films so people were confused as to what ones they wanted to see because they wanted to see two that were playing at the same time,” Nicksic said. “We really feel like we are able to bring a lot of good movies and people that want to see all of them really can see all of them . the movies don’t clash with each other.”

If the low number of offered films results in a lower attendance, Nowlan said he is fine with it.

“No one’s involved doing it because they hope to make anything out of, or from it,” Nowlan said. “We just hope to provide a useful and interesting service to those interested in taking advantage of it . I don’t feel any of the pressure that a commercial or non-politically focused festival might to attract any particular level of response.”

Tonight marks the night the film festival will show one of Nicksic’s most anticipated films of the fest, “The Price of Sugar,” which begins at 8 p.m. in Hibbard Hall, room 100.

“‘The Price of Sugar’ should be an interesting film,” Nicksic said. “(The film) is about the travel of sugar from where its grown to how it gets to our country and sort of the controversial employment and distribution of it.”

On Friday, Nicksic’s is excited the fest is offering a showing of “King Corn” at 8 p.m. in Hibbard Hall, room 100. Both “The Price of Sugar” and “King Corn” will have university professors on hand to facilitate discussions after the films end Nicksic said.

“I’m excited to see ‘King Corn,'” Nicksic said. “It’s about how corn has become sort of the basis for all the food we eat and sort of from where corn starts in the field to where it actually ends up and what it actually ends up in.”

On Saturday at 5 p.m. in Hibbard Hall, room 100, the festival will show “Titicut Follies,” a portrayal of conditions that existed at the state prison for the criminally insane at Bridgewater, Mass. and document the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers, and psychiatrists.

At 8 p.m. that same day and location, the festival will show “Belfast, Maine,” a film about ordinary experience in a beautiful old New England port city that focuses on daily life with particular emphasis on the work and the cultural life of the community.

To finish the fest off, part one and two of “La Commune, Paris, 1871” will be shown at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. The film explores a famous, brief, romantic, and tragic period when poor and working-class Parisians rose up against and seized power from the bourgeois French national government, which fled the capital and re-established itself in Versailles.