In just three years, the Asian-American film festival called Silk Screen has established itself as a savory spring fling for movie lovers looking beyond the superheroes and special effects of the multiplex.

The festival will open Friday with a 7 p.m. movie at the Harris Theater and an 8 p.m. red-carpet gala Downtown that promises to be "the most colorful and exotic party of the year." The wardrobe certainly will be, with partygoers invited to wear saris, kurtas, sarongs, cheongsams, hanboks and kimonos, although traditional garb is welcome, too.

The gala, scheduled to last until midnight, will be held at 121 Seventh St. (on the sixth floor) above Bossa Nova, Downtown. Exotic dishes and drinks from Asian restaurants will be served, and the entertainment -- disc jockeys plus Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Mongolian, Indian and Indonesian music, performances or dance -- will reflect the international flavor of the festival.

Gala tickets are $75 and can be purchased in advance through www.silkscreenfestival.org or at the door.

Nearly two dozen movies will be shown at four venues through May 18: Harris Theater, 809 Liberty Ave.; Regent Square Theater, 1035 S. Braddock Ave.; Pittsburgh Filmmakers' Melwood Screening Room, 477 Melwood Ave.; and The Andy Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky St.

Admission for the opening night film, "Before the Rains," is $15, and all others are $8 or $5 for students with valid IDs. An eight-film pass is $50.

For tickets, go to www.silk-screenfestival.org or call 412-322-3300, ext. 114. Tickets also can be purchased at the theater box office 30 minutes before showtime. Some films will feature question-and-answer sessions afterward although they are subject to change due to the international travel of the filmmakers.

Here is the lineup for the first week. Many of the movies are subtitled. The balance of the schedule, along with more reviews, will appear in next Thursday's edition of Weekend Magazine.

HARRIS

7 p.m.: "Before the Rains" (India) -- Southwestern India of 1937 provides the backdrop for an idealistic young Indian man torn between his ambitions for the future and loyalty to the past when people learn of an affair between his British boss and a village woman. Rahul Bose, Linus Roache and Nandita Das star. Director Q&A.

REGENT SQUARE

6 p.m.: "Takva: A Man's Fear of God" (Turkey) -- A man of faith is rewarded for his devotion, only to find his beliefs challenged by his new prosperity in this Turkish drama.

8 p.m.: "Amal" (India) -- The life of a rickshaw-driver (Rupinder Nagra) is forever altered when an eccentric tycoon decides to bequeath him his fortune. This movie, filmed in New Delhi, just won the grand jury prize for best narrative feature at the sixth Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. Director Q&A.

HARRIS

7 p.m.: "Dark Matter" (China) -- A brilliant Chinese student comes to the United States to study the origins of the universe but proves a threat to his department head and spirals into true darkness. Liu Ye, Meryl Streep and Aidan Quinn star.

9 p.m.: "Tuya's Marriage" (China) -- Tuya is a Mongolian desert herder who has a disabled husband, two children and 100 sheep to care for. When she injures her back, she decides to divorce her husband on paper and look for a spouse who can support the whole family. Winner of the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.

REGENT SQUARE

3 p.m.: "Owl and the Sparrow" (Vietnam) -- Audience pleaser about a 10-year-old girl who escapes from her factory job and heads to Saigon, where she gradually assembles a makeshift family. Director Q&A.

5:30 p.m.: "Mithya" (India) -- Comic Bollywood thriller about an aspiring actor who moves to Mumbai but finds himself smack in the middle of underworld crime. Turns out he's a ringer for the Don, one of two roles played by Ranvir Shorey.

8 p.m.: "Edge of Heaven" (Turkey) -- When a lonely widower meets a prostitute and offers to let the fellow Turkish native live with him in exchange for low rent, he sets off a chain of events for them and their offspring.

HARRIS

4:30 p.m.: "Chop Shop" (USA) -- Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco), a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body repair shop in a sprawling junk yard on the outskirts of Queens. He tries to make a better life for himself and his 16-year-old sister and begins to save his money to buy a mobile-food van.

6:30 p.m.: "Getting Home" (China) -- Zhang Yang, whose movie "Shower" explored the tensions of family life in a rapidly changing society, directs this road comedy about a man trying to make good on his vow to transport the corpse of a friend thousands of miles back to his hometown.

8:30 p.m.: "Half Moon" (Iran) -- A Kurdish musician, in the twilight of his life, must lead a dozen of his sons to Iraq for a concert -- "a cry of freedom" -- to celebrate the fall of Saddam Hussein and the end of his repression of Kurdish music. Along the way they find sublime visions, brutality and transformative power.

MELWOOD SCREENING ROOM

5:30 p.m.: "5 Centimeters per Second" (Japan) -- The title of this animated movie refers to the speed of falling cherry-blossom petals or, as many reviewers have pointed out, the ephemeral nature of youth. Anime filmmaker Makoto Shinkai presents this story, about lovelorn characters, in three visually striking segments.

8 p.m.: "A Gentle Breeze in the Village" (Japan) -- Fusako Kuramochi's manga tale inspired this story about a rural Japanese school girl smitten by a handsome new arrival from Tokyo.

HARRIS

7:30 p.m.: "Getting Home"

REGENT SQUARE

8 p.m.: "Mithya"

WEDNESDAY

HARRIS

7:30 p.m.: "Chop Shop"

MELWOOD

7:30 p.m.: "A Gentle Breeze in the Village"

REGENT SQUARE

8 p.m.: "Amal"