NEW YORK -- Movies about Jane's Addiction, Elliott Smith, rave culture and hardcore punk will be shown here this week during the sixth annual New York Underground Film Festival.

Among the highlights are the Jane's Addiction tour documentary "Three Days," a full-length film that premiered in January at the Slamdance independent film festival in Park City, Utah, and "Strange Parallel," a quirky, half-hour portrait of Elliott Smith that first was shown during the CMJ Film Festival here in November.

But those are just two of a slew of music-oriented documentaries, feature films and shorts that will be shown at the five-day festival, which runs Wednesday (March 10) through Sunday at the Anthology Film Archives in New York's East Village.

"We've always had a fondness for music films," said festival director Ed Halter. "Music documentaries know they can come; the festival is a good showcase for these movies."

To celebrate the festival, several bands perform during the five days. Rap legends and alternative-rockers Girls Against Boys headline an opening-night bash, and indie-rockers Modest Mouse close the festival Sunday.

In between will be performances by Come, Two Dollar Guitar, Dr. Israel, Dem Brooklyn Bums, Ten Foot Pole, the Dismemberment Plan and others.

Steve Hanft's "Strange Parallel" will be screened as part of a short-film showcase on Thursday. The film includes footage of Smith's recording sessions for his 1998 album XO, which features such songs as "Baby Britain" (RealAudio excerpt). Also on the short-film bill are "Johnny Bagpipes," a fictional account of heavy-metal bagpipes player She-Beast! centering on a DJ who likes loud music; and "Gradually Going Gonzo," a flick about a man who transforms into Ted Nugent.

"Three Days" will be shown Friday and Saturday; it follows Jane's Addiction on and off the road during their 1997 reunion tour, and features performances of several songs including "Mountain Song" and "Oceansize" (RealAudio excerpt).

European drone-rockers Stereolab and American indie-rock acts Come and Will Oldham perform onscreen in Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky's "Radiation," to be shown Thursday. The movie is about a dead-end indie-rock promoter in Spain.

Rave culture will be well-represented in a two-fer showing Thursday night: "Synergy," directed by Valerian Bennett, casts a dilated eye on the desert rave scene, while "Liquids," from Brooklyn, N.Y., filmmaker Jimmy Mazzullo, takes viewers inside East Coast parties. Mazzullo, participating in his second straight NYUFF, said, "I keep going now not just for the sake of going, but to accumulate something beautiful while I'm here."

Punk also will be alive and loud at the festival, with two documentaries showcasing two different regional scenes. Mike Gaut's "Crudbucket," showing Friday, chronicles the hardcore bands of Birmingham, Ala., while "Release," showing Sunday, travels up and down the East Coast to peek in on shows by Sick of It All, Bad Religion, Bouncing Souls, MxPx, Less Than Jake and others, as well as on the fans and scenesters around them.

Many films feature soundtracks that may find wider audiences than the movies themselves. Modern-rockers Beck and the Muffs (joined by C.C. DeVille of the hair-metal band Poison) provided songs for the Dust Brothers-produced soundtrack to "Bury Me in Kern County," a movie that director Julien Nitzberg has described as a "white-trash black comedy."

"The Acid House," directed by Paul McGuigan from stories by Irvine Welsh, includes music by the Verve, Oasis, the Chemical Brothers, Nick Cave, Beth Orton and Belle and Sebastian. Director Roddy Bogawa's experimental "Junk" features heavy guitar music from Steel Pole Bath Tub, Chavez, Seam, Come and Codeine.00. Two of the festival's more extreme films, "Pig" and "The Atrocity Exhibition," employ experimental, expressive scores to evoke a sense of menace and violence. The former includes music by the late Rozz Williams (of Christian Death), while the latter carries musical works by Einsturzende Neubaten, J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus), Krystof Penderecki and Henryk Gorecki.

A complete screening schedule is available on the festival web site: www.nyuff.com