All across the country people are firing up their camcorders and making independent films of a very personal nature. Many of these films are too small to make it on the national film festival circuit, much less into theaters outside of the towns that they were shot in. But that's okay. It's good, even.

There is a movement going on in this country right now with the unfortunate name of "Mumblecore" (or "mumblecorpse" depending on who you ask). The name itself allegedly comes from the sound mixer of one of Andrew Bujalski's movies who was making fun of the actor's penchant to mumble. But as I understand it the term could have just as easily come from Joe Swanberg's sound mixer, Michael Tully's sound mixer, or the sound mixers from the Duplass brothers or the Zellner brothers.

Many of these movies are connected to the Austin filmmaking scene in one way or another, and most of them share an aesthetic where the performances are more important than the ugly MiniDV look of the movie. I remember seeing The Puffy Chair and feeling like the Duplass brothers were daring me to shut it off, but there were unexpected and very funny touches in the performances that seduced me into becoming a big fan of the film. All this despite the fact that it looked like ass. Somehow Todd Rohal's The Guatemalan Handshake got mixed into this movement, despite the fact that it was shot beautifully on film and is scripted in a way that doesn't feel like it's based on somebody's blog.

That is just one arm of the regional filmmaking scene, the one that's found a way to coalesce nationally and get some national attention. Most of the rest of it doesn't travel well. The stories are too small and personal, and don't have the hook that will make people in the Midwest, say, want to see it.

In Seattle, a movie named June & July just opened at the Northwest Film Forum. Writer-director Brady Hall moved beyond the public access shock comedy of his last film Jerkbeast, without totally giving up on it, and pulled together a sweet and not so simple story of twentysomething fraternal twins who are slowly growing apart. This one is more The Guatemalan Handshake than your traditional Mumblecore film because it was shot on 35mm and introduces some strange supernatural elements halfway through. It's charming and sweet and sometimes dirty and totally winning, and because it doesn't have name actors in it the movie may not travel far outside the borders of King County.

While I'm on the subject of Seattle filmmakers, I want to mention Andrew McAllister, whose movie Urban Scarecrow hit the festival circuit last year. It's a coming-of-age story about a boy growing up with his father, a wannabe stand up comedian, while living in one of the low-rent hotels on Highway 99. It's another charming film that's emotionally honest, but without the storytelling gimmicks needed to attract the attention of national distributors. Which reminds me of Lynn Shelton's We Go Way Back, which won awards at Slamdance and got a bit of distribution and which you should see if you are able to. And Matt Wilkins' Buffalo Bill's Defunct is great, about a dysfunctional rural family whose alcoholism is taken for granted and not made a big deal of.

What it all comes down to is the fact that I'm barely scratching the surface of good films made in Seattle that haven't made their way into national attention. I'm guessing that if you live in a city of any significant size, you've got your own filmmakers who are honing their craft and making the art that they want and need to make. Support them, because odds are I won't ever hear of them.

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Andy Spletzer is consistently surprised to hear whenever a feature film has been finished in Seattle, which happens more often then you would expect.