Twenty years in, the Port Townsend Film Festival still has new wrinkles to offer returning attendees while entertaining newcomers.

“With 73 filmmakers, producers and actors as guests, you can see a film almost any time with a professional to answer questions,” PTFF Executive Director Janette Force said.

For 20 years, dinner on Taylor Street has been served by Silverwater Café to the Film Festival’s pass-holders.

“The number has gone from the original 250 to nearly 700, and they all eat in less than an hour,” Force said. “Alison and David Hero are, in fact, culinary heroes!”

In addition to serving more diners than previous festivals, this year’s Taylor Street dinner will be a Mediterranean feast, to satisfy carnivores, vegetarians and vegans in equal measure.

“They can have a good meal and still make it to their 6 p.m. screenings,” Force said.

Among the highlights that Force pointed to in this year’s lineup of films are two small-town love stories — “Phoenix Oregon,” made in rural Oregon about a down-and-out bowling alley and two dreamers, and “12 Conversations,” made right here in Port Townsend — with the directors of both slated to attend.

Jan Halliday, who serves as the development, marketing and communications director for the festival, encouraged folks to check out the Sept. 21 “Groundhog Day” evening screening outdoors, since actor Stephen Tobolowsky is slated to appear in person before the showing to judge the Ned Ryerson lookalike contest.

Another Saturday recommendation by Halliday is the music of “Miles & Karina,” a duo scheduled to play multiple instruments — fiddle, accordion, drums and xylophone — to accompany the silent films of German filmmaker Lotte Reiniger on Sept. 21 at 3:15 p.m. at the Rose Theatre.

“These films were made between 1922 and 1954,” Halliday said of Reiniger, adding, “She invented the multiplane animation camera,” which was used to move a number of pieces of artwork past the camera at various speeds and distances to create a sense of depth.

Halliday also pointed to the filmmaker panels Sept. 21 and 22 at 10 a.m. in the Jefferson Museum of Art and History Museum, as opportunities to hear from “extraordinary storytellers.”

The Sept. 21 screening of “Ernie & Joe” at 9:30 a.m. in the American Legion hall features a unique synergy between cinema and its real-life subjects.

The film centers on two police officers working in a mental health unit, and the question-and-answer period following the Saturday morning screening not only includes one of these officers, Ernie Stevens, but also director Jenifer McShane, Port Townsend Police Chief Michael Evans, the mental health navigator for the city, and the local chapter president for the National Alliance on Mental Health.

Booksellers will be hawking Cheryl Strayed’s books before and after her appearance in the back of the American Legion Hall (recently remodelled with funds raised by the Film Festival) on the evening of Sept. 21, and Halliday noted the festival will expand on Sept, 20, with events in both the Port Townsend and Chimacum high schools.

Filmmaker Ben Shedd will screen his film on human-powered flight at the Chimacum Junior/Senior High School, which is closed to the public and not listed in the festival’s program, but at Port Townsend High School, director Michael Brown will talk about filming a blind kayaker going down the Grand Canyon stretch of the Colorado River.

“That event will be open to the public,” Halliday said, referring moviegoers to page 8 of the Port Townsend Film Festival program for further details.

And a second Peter Simpson free cinema, with no pass required, has been added at the Jefferson County Library all three days of the Film Festival, with 60 seats and five screenings, while the first one has moved to the Marina Room at Point Hudson, next to the Shanghai Restaurant. The Peter Simpson events are named for the longtime artistic director of the Film Fest.