Hal Hartley's films to be featured in Cinema Arts Centre retrospective

Lindenhurst-raised Hal Hartley, a critically lauded writer-director of the 1980s and ‘90s independent-film movement, appears in person Aug. 25 at Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre to kick off a four-film retrospective of his work.

Programmed by David Schwartz, former chief curator of the Museum of the Moving Image, the series opens with Hartley’s first feature, “The Unbelievable Truth” (1989), and continues on Aug. 27, 30 and 31 with “Trust” (1990), “Simple Men” (1992) and “Henry Fool” (1997), for which Hartley, 63, won the Cannes Film Festival’s best screenplay award.

With a Long Island-centric blend of naturalism and philosophical absurdity, his movies helped launch the careers of such informal repertory players as Adrienne Shelly, Martin Donovan, Edie Falco and Robert John Burke. In addition to a post-film Q&A, Hartley also will sign copies of his 2022 novel “Our Lady of the Highway.” Tickets at the theater’s website are $15 general-public, $10 members, except opening night, $17 and $12, respectively.