We’ll start our preview of this year’s 20th Anniversary Woodstock Film Festival, running October 2-5, with the special guests, including Matt Dillon, Rosie Perez, Parker Posey, Julie Taymor, folk music icon Janis Ian, and many others. Abigail Disney, granddaughter of Walt, will receive the Trailblazer Award for her documentaries and community activism. March for Our Lives co-founder Cameron Kasky will be on hand for the screening of Parkland Rising, about the teen-led anti-gun-violence movement generated by the high school shooting in Florida.

A look at some of the can’t-miss films that might be lost in the shuffle.

Watching film footage of great jazz musicians in their youth — Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, Woodstock’s own Ingrid Sertso and Karl Berger, and many more — is just one of the pleasures of the documentary Karl Berger — Music Mind, showing at the Woodstock Film Festival at 7 p.m. Wednesday, October 10, at the Woodstock Playhouse.

Oct. 10-14: This year’s festival features nine world premieres, four North American premieres, one U.S. premiere, a dozen East Coast premieres, and eight New York premieres among the 100 plus screenings and dozens of star-studded panel discussions and special events arrayed over five days, as well as special awards being presented to legendary theater and film visionary Julie Taymor and award-winning documentary director Matthew Heineman, known for his eye-opening work on healthcare and opioid addiction crises

The festival, which runs from Oct. 11-15, features many films by local directors and shot in the Hudson Valley.