MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — One of Milledgeville’s true marquee events is returning for a fourth year.

The Milledgeville Film Festival, the multi-day event that draws actors and filmmakers from all over the world to debut, discuss and promote their films, is making final preparations for this year’s installment, and the lineup looks to be the most exciting yet.

“This year, we received 460 submissions from 41 countries from every continent except Antarctica,” said Jeremiah Bennett, the festival’s founder and chairman of the board. “We’re really excited because we have filmmakers coming in from Spain, Japan, the Czech Republic and Canada, on top of filmmakers coming in from L.A., New York, Denver, Nashville, and other major cities.”

Wednesday at 11 a.m., the international group will converge on the city for a special screening of work by local high school students to kick off the five-day festival. The screening will be the first of more than 90 films spread out over 35 hours throughout the weekend, which include independent filmmakers and bona fide celebrities alike.

“Well, we’re excited about a lot of different films, but there’s a short film called the ‘Lone Hunter’ that stars Tom Choi, who is the actor in the television show ‘Teen Wolf’ and is also in Disney’s new show ‘Bizaardvark’,” said Bennett. “He’s coming in to town for his screening at 3 o’clock on Saturday, so that’s a really great film that we’re excited about. We’re also excited about our opening night film, ‘The 12 Lives of Sissy Carlyle’ that was filmed in Georgia, and we also have a documentary called ‘The Uncomfortable Truth’ that will have one of the Freedom Riders who’s in the movie and will be at that screening as well, so we’ve got a lot of great films.”

Aside from the added boost that the festival’s guests will give to Milledgeville’s hotels, shops and restaurants, its organizers hope that the event will be a boon for the community in other ways. Operating as a 501 (c)(3) without any paid staff, the nonprofit’s main goal is to put on a unique event for the community.

“We’ll have some great workshops including panels on virtual reality, where we’ll be giving out [100 pairs] of the free cardboard glasses to everyone that participates,” said Bennett. “We have panels on acting, producing, and camera work, and we have the camera operator from Marvel’s new Black Panther movie doing a camera workshop. We’ll also have a sound workshop, so lots of workshops and panels to help you as a filmmaker, an aspiring filmmaker, or someone that just wants to know more about the film and television industry.”

Although organizers plan to host hundreds of film industry professionals over the course of the festival, the ones in attendance will simply be happy that their films were among the ones that were chosen. In narrowing 460 submissions down to a little more than 90, Bennett and his team of industry professionals, festival board members, Georgia College students, and community members spent several months viewing and cutting down the list of films. While simple logistics forced organizers to turn hundreds of artists and industry professionals away, a special event has been planned that would take advantage of Georgia’s recent film industry tax cuts to attract productions to Milledgeville for more than just the annual festival.

“One of the things we’ve done this year was to schedule a tour for some filmmakers to go visit Central State and other key places in town for some upcoming projects where they’re looking for certain types of locations,” said Bennett. “Having a tour led by city and visitor’s bureau folks, we wanted to show these great locations so that new projects can be filmed in Milledgeville.”

In four years of putting on the festival, Bennett and his team of volunteers have succeeded in growing one of the city’s most exciting events to its largest scale yet. For the festival’s founder and chairman, the beauty of the festival lies not in the films being shown on screen, but in getting to meet and speak with the people who make it happen.

“It’s not about just going to a theatre, grabbing some popcorn, and watching a film, it’s a great experience because after these films, you get to hear a Q&A session with these filmmakers where you can ask ‘Hey, how was it making this film?’” he said. “It’s a very interactive experience that you don’t get just from going to the movies.”

The Milledgeville Film Festival begins Wednesday and runs until Sunday evening. For tickets, screening and panel locations, and more information, visit www.milledgevillefilmfest.