If you want to get a Boston premiere for your film, it may be as easy as sending a copy on video to Bo Smith and Kathleen Mullen at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). Smith has headed the film program there since 1987, while Mullen joined last year to coordinate events like the recent Gay/Lesbian Film Festival.

"Virtually every two month block [has] a local filmmaker," said Smith, citing the long-running "Boston Film Artists" series. "We work hand in hand with the artist on a given program."

Museum of Fine Arts Film Program’s Bo Smith, Head of Film, and Kathleen Mullen, Film Program Coordinator, at the opening night of the Boston Gay and Lesbian Film/Video Festival.

The MFA has showcased established filmmakers like Frederick Wiseman and David Sutherland, but also unknowns with a feature or a short work to be shown. A case in point is Mary Mazzio’s A HERO FOR DAISY, a forty minute documentary on female athletes that had previously played the Boston Film Festival. The MFA showing sold out two weeks prior to the engagement, making the film one of the biggest hits there in recent months. It is back on the schedule with several showings at the museum in June.

Of course, simply sending your film to Smith and Mullen doesn’t guarantee a playdate—not by a long shot. For 21 programs of features and shorts in the Gay/Lesbian Festival, Mullen estimates that she and her committee screened close to 200 works. Still, the door is open. Said Smith, "It’s amazing how many people come to us. That’s one thing that’s changed over the years."

The MFA program started a half century ago in a different era. The group that pushed for films at the museum was the "Ladies Committee." Museum supporter Kitty White was a major force behind the move and remains involved to this day. The original model was along the lines of the Museum of Modern Art’s film program in New York, with one exception. Explained Smith, "There was a decision that we wouldn’t get into the archival, collecting business."

There has always been an emphasis on film about art, with documentaries about painters like Henri Matisse and Jackson Pollack. With the current limited screen space for independent and foreign films, the impetus is to be "different from what anybody else is doing." While the MFA will occasionally preview movies prior to commercial release, many of the films shown there are ones without an American distribution deal or with distribution but no advertising budget. That leads to film series that are unlikely to play even esoteric commercial houses like the Brattle, the Coolidge Corner, or the Kendall Square, focusing, for example, on recent films from Iran.

These series often attract moviegoers who might not otherwise attend the museum. Said Mullen, "We get a very diverse audience here."

In June the MFA will feature the area premiere of DRIBBLIN’ FATE, a feature that is expected to attract members of the local Cape Verdean community because it is set there. Later in the summer will be the annual festival of recent films from France, most of which are no longer assured of American distribution, even with a bankable star like Catherine Deneuve, who will appear in LE VENT DE LA NUIT ("The Night Wind").

There are two areas where Smith and Mullen hope to expand the museum’s film projects. A long-standing hope is to have more of the festivals now run in large part by the MFA get taken over by independent groups that will be able to devote full time for the event. The model for this is the Boston Jewish Film Festival, which started as a museum run event, and now has been an independent project for several years. Said Smith, "We’re always citing that festival as a success we’d like to be able to replicate."

The Jewish festival continues to partner with the museum on programming (including some films in the upcoming French festival) but the event is no longer entirely the MFA’s responsibility. Events like the Gay/Lesbian festival and the French series have run long enough to have loyal audience support as well as outside sponsorship, but the burden of running the operation continues to fall on the MFA.

Another area ripe for expansion is creating more opportunities for museum filmgoers to comment on the films and interact with directors. Filmmakers will often be available for the premiere screening, but that doesn’t help attendees at subsequent shows, nor is it practical to have discussions after long documentaries where attendees want some time to think about what they’ve seen.

"Our ambition and drive is involving audiences in a way that they don’t usually have—a chance to have an expressive experience (after the screening)," said Smith. "We would like to do more. We’ve toyed with this over the years."

One innovation has been making greater use of the Internet. You can check on film programs by clicking on http://www.mfa.org/film and you can also send comments and suggestions to fof@mfa.org. The latter is the e-mail drop for "Friends of Film," a group started six months before Smith’s arrival. "We wanted to give people more seriously involved in film a support group," recalled Smith. From 100 members it currently stands in the 600-800 range, with members invited to special private screenings of films at the MFA’s Remis Auditorium, ranging from upcoming Hollywood and foreign features to previews of museum attractions.

"People want to come to the museum because seeing a film here is distinctly different than elsewhere," said Smith, noting the lack of popcorn as well as the audience being more respectful in attending to the film. (Translation: people shut up and watch the movie instead.)

And, of course, there’s the added benefit of getting the opportunity to see movies that may not turn up anywhere else, whether it was made around the world or simply down the street.

Daniel M. Kimmel is the Boston Correspondent for Variety Magazine