Bakersfield’s international cinema society has a long history of bringing independent foreign and American-made films to town. So long, in fact, it is entering its 28^th season in Bakersfield.

FLICS kicks off Friday, Sept. 11, with “Tulpan” by Kazakh filmmaker Sergey Dvortsevoy. The film is about lead character Asa, who, following his Russian naval service, returns to become a shepherd and win the hand of his mysterious neighbor Tulpan.

All films are shown at the Fox Theater, 2001 H St., which lured the cinema society to the then-newly restored building in the mid 1990s.

“They had thought of showing independent films there,” said Phil Neufeld, who co-founded FLICS in 1982. “But then they thought, since there’s a group that already does it, why not bring them in? They wanted to preserve the Fox’s history as a movie house.”

So FLICS left the Beale Memorial Library for the Fox. But it wasn’t their first move. They started at Bakersfield College, then moved to Cal State Bakersfield, Bakersfield Community Theater and Harvey Auditorium.

“We called ourselves the ‘Bedouin Film Society,’ we moved around so much,” Neufeld joked.

But FLICS is now very well settled into its seats at the Fox, where, for 17 Friday nights between September and April, it will be showing films from such countries as Tunisia, Sweden, Austria and Japan – to name a few. There are American-made independent films as well.

The second film of the season, on Sept. 25, is the documentary “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29,” directed by Kevin Rafferty. This film looks at the historic 1968 matchup between two college football rivals, both of which went into the game undefeated that season.

Neufeld is especially excited to bring this film to Bakersfield because of two local ties.

For one, Castle & Cooke President Bruce Freeman played end on the Harvard team and is interviewed in the documentary (along with actor Tommy Lee Jones, who played guard).

The second tie is Don Clark, former KBAK news anchor, was in the stands for the game. Neufeld hopes to bring both gentlemen to the FLICS showing for a question and answer session with the audience.

The average audience for FLICS films is about 400. Tickets are $5 per person or $50 for a season pass.

As a nonprofit, FLICS does not pay its volunteers. Instead, surplus funds are donated to local organizations. Last year, according to Neufeld, FLICS donated $5,000 to the Fox Theatre Foundation for repairs and upgrades to the facility, and another $2,500 to the Kern County Library Foundation for programs and materials.

“That’s the proudest thing we’ve done ever,” Neufeld said.

When Neufeld learned that the new Maya Cinemas downtown would be offering foreign films (geared toward Latino audiences), he was happy to hear there would be more opportunities to see international cinema in Bakersfield.

“If you drive to L.A., you can see hundreds of films that are never shown in Bakersfield. There’s a whole world out there,” Neufeld said. “That’s why we started FLICS. We wanted to enhance the culture in our community.”

2009-2010 FLICS Season

When: 7:30 p.m. various Friday nights September 2009 through April 2010

Where: The Fox Theater, 2001 H Street

Admission: $5 per person or $50 per season pass

More information: http://fligs.org, flics_guy@flics.org or 428-0354

Sept. 11: Tulpan; Kazakhstan

Sept. 25: Harvard Beats Yale 29-29; US

Oct. 2: Laila’s Birthday; Palestine, Tunisia, Netherlands

Oct. 16: Thousand Years of Good Prayers; US

Oct. 30: Let the Right One In; Sweden

Nov. 13: Revanche; Austria

Nov. 20: Goodbye Solo; US

Dec. 4: Departures; Japan

Jan. 8: Happy Go Lucky; UK

Jan. 22: My Father, My Lord,; Israel

Feb. 5: Treeless Mountain; Korea

Feb. 19: Love Comes Lately; Germany

March 5: Wendy & Lucy; US

March 19: Cherry Blossoms; Germany

April 2: Jerichow; Germany

April 16: Jellyfish; Israel, France

April 30: Villa Jasmin, France