MOVIES: Reel talk — and real caffeine — at new CineVegas Café Series

  Time for some reel talk.
  With the CineVegas film festival about a month away, festival officials are cranking up the conversation with a weekly CineVegas Café Series at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf locations around town.
  Featuring conversations with local film experts, the Café Series kicks off at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 9, at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf located at The District at Green Valley Ranch. CineVegas’ artistic director, Trevor Groth, will lead the conversation.
  At 11 a.m. May 16, the series moves to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at Canyon Point in Summerlin, featuring locals Sean Clark, who directs UNLV’s graduate screenwriting program, and director Gary Nelson. Clark’s credits range from TV (“Coach,” “Northern Exposure”) to the stage (his play “Eleven-Zulu” won a prestigious Lorraine Hansberry Award). Nelson, best known for the feature “The Black Hole,” also directed such TV classics as “Gunsmoke,” “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Get Smart.”
  The series continues at 11 a.m. May 30 at the Town Square location, featuring filmmaker David Schmoeller, an associate professor at UNLV who runs the film department’s Short Film Archive. Schmoeller recently produced the comedy “Thor at the Bus Stop,” which will premiere in June at CineVegas.
  CineVegas’ Café Series concludes at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 4, with Mike Plante, CineVegas’ associate director of programming, who plays a primary role in viewing and selecting which films will play the festival each year.
  Those who attend all four CineVegas Café Events will be entered to win a grand prize at the final event, which includes a pair of all-access festival passes.
  In sponsoring the series, CineVegas’ “aim is to offer interested members of the community an inside look at independent film, film festivals and CineVegas from some of the city’s top film experts,” said Anita Nelving. CineVegas’ managing director, in a news release. “The series will give locals the unique opportunity to engage with these experts as well as other film and coffee lovers.”
  For more information, click on the CineVegas Web site, www.cinevegas.com.