Film festival devoted to dads this week

The third annual Fatherhood Film Festival is set for Thursday at Liberty Hall.

The festival, which benefits Dads of Douglas County, is billed as a night of films, music and discussion. The goal of the festival is to initiate larger conversations about fatherhood through storytelling and film.

It features two films, a panel discussion on fatherhood and a performance by singer/songwriter Wes Cunningham, who stars in the film “Sironia,” which is being screened.

“The Other F Word,” a documentary about a unique challenge, kicks off the night at 5:30 p.m. The film is about veteran punk-rock dads — the film includes Art Alexakis of Everclear, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Mark Hoppus of Blink 182, among others — adapting their lives and wrestling with fatherhood.

A live panel discussion called “Balancing a Dream with Becoming a Dad,” featuring local musicians who are also fathers and filmmakers from the next film to be shown, will take place at 7:30 p.m.

At 8 p.m., the feature film “Sironia,” which won the Audience Award at the 2011 Austin Film Festival, will be shown.

“Sironia” stars Amy Acker (“Cabin in the Woods,” “Angel”), Tony Hale (“Arrested Development” and “Veep”), and singer/songwriter Wes Cunningham, whose music inspired the film. In fitting with the theme of musicians-turned-fathers, Cunningham plays a frustrated songwriter who gives up his music dreams to raise a family in the small town of Sironia, Texas.

Cunningham will attend the screening, and at 9:45 p.m., once the film has ended, he will perform live.

On Saturday, a feature film called “Waterwalk” will screen at 7 p.m. at the Oread hotel screening room. The film is about a father and son who take a 1,000-mile canoe journey retracing the Marquette-Joliet discovery route of the Mississippi. Steven Faulkner, author of the book “Waterwalk,” will be a guest speaker.

A previous version of this story described “Waterwalk” as a short film.