First he danced his heart out in a jail cell to a Bruce Springsteen remix. Now, Vermont dancer Ernest “E-Knock” Phillips is busting moves in an arcade. And Burlington filmmaker Michael Fisher has been there to capture it all.

As Seven Days’ Eva Sollberger documented in a May 2014 installment of “Stuck in Vermont” (below), the dancer and the filmmaker have struck up a fruitful artistic collaboration. Phillips has performed on the shows “So You Think You Can Dance” and “America’s Got Talent”; Fisher, a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, has made a name for himself with his stylish, evocative short films.

No American landscape looks less like Vermont’s than the parched desert that runs along the dying Salton Sea in southern California — which is precisely what drew me to vacation there last week. But a folk-art oasis in that no man’s land rightfully belongs to the Green Mountain State.

Near the dusty town of Nilan, Vermont-born Leonard Knight spent three decades building a monument to God called Salvation Mountain. A vision of obsessive devotion topped with a cross, it marks the entrance to a squatters’ paradise called Slab City, aka The Slabs, that was featured in the 2007 movie Into the Wild. Knight and his mountain were also in the film.

Tuesday, March 10

French director François Ozon has, over the last two decades, proven to be one of the most creative and intelligent forces in international cinema. He first came to my attention about 15 years ago with his homage to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Water Drops on Burning Rocks. I became an ardent admirer a few years later, when I saw 8 Women and Swimming Pool, both of which I adore. (8 Women, in particular, is pure, wicked fun from start to finish.)

Though I’d lost touch with Ozon’s work in recent years, I did catch his 2012 film In the House, which I admire a great deal. It’s a slow-burning kind of film that starts out as an apparently routine domestic drama, but soon unravels into something stranger and cleverer.

In the House is well worth a look, and it’s playing this week for free at Castleton State College, as part of the school’s weekly 2015 film festival.

The movie plays at the Herrick Auditorium at 6:30 p.m. Free.

Saturday, March 14

At another of Vermont’s fine institutions of higher learning, cinephiles can catch the award-winning Belgian film Omar (2013), a long story set amid the endless war between Israel and Palestine. The title character is a Palestinian baker who thinks nothing of scaling the wall into Israel to meet up with his girlfriend. But when he semi-unwittingly becomes an informant, his already muddy allegiances become all the more unclear.

Omar plays at Middlebury College’s Dana Auditorium at 3 and 8 p.m. Free.

Also, Burlington’s ArtsRiot hosts what might be the week’s most intriguing screening. Pirates of Tebenkof is a documentary about salmon fishing in Alaska; that unusual word in its title refers to the Tebenkof Bay Wilderness, a 66,000-acre federal preserve in southern Alaska.

The film follows a group of fishermen who build a commercial fishing boat that they pilot out to Alaska to take part in an enormous salmon harvest. Two members of the crew will be present at the screening to fill in any details that the film itself could not cover.

True to ArtsRiot’s multidisciplinary mission, the screening of Pirates of Tebenkof will include a concert, as well. A performance by three musical acts — local singer-songwriter Maryse Smith, experimentally minded Burlington soundscapist SnakeFoot and Michael Nau of the Nashville-based band Cotton Jones — is included with the price of admission to the film.

Pirates of Tebenkof screens at 6:30 p.m. $10-$12. Concert starts after the film. 

Tuesday, March 17

Avid filmgoers will want to return once again to Castleton State to see A Screaming Man, a 2010 film about one man who struggles to find an articulate response to the civil war that rages in his home country of Chad. A Screaming Man won the Jury Prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival — no mean feat. It’s unlikely to ever again receive a screening in Vermont, so carpe diem.

A Screaming Man plays at 6:30 p.m. at Herrick Auditorium.

Wednesday, March 18

Burlington’s Fletcher Free Library will show the documentary Women in Space as part of an ongoing collaboration with Vermont PBS’ Community Cinema program.

Women in Space is part of the video series “Makers,” dedicated to exploring women’s issues. Narrated by Jodie Foster, this one traffics in literal exploration — space exploration, that is — and the women who have taken part in that otherworldly experience.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with local science educators, including Burlington High School physics teacher Lisa Sitek and Suzanne Weishaar, the science coach at Burlington’s Sustainability Academy.

Women in Space screens at 6:30 p.m. 

Also tonight, Vermonters can see one of 2013’s most thought-provoking films: the Penn-and-Teller-produced Tim’s Vermeer. As with so much of that duo’s work, the film investigates the nature of forgery and trickery in the art world.

In the film, inventor Tim Jenison expresses the theory that the great painter Johannes Vermeer used optical devices to create his masterpieces. So Jenison does what anyone would do: He obsessively invents devices with which he attempts to duplicate Vermeer’s technique. The result is a fascinating journey through the subject of artistic authenticity and fakery, as only Penn and Teller can present it.

Tim’s Vermeer screens as part of the Frog Hollow winter film series at Feldman’s Bagels in Burlington at 7 p.m. Free. Discussion to follow.

When I was a kid, the public library in my hometown would occasionally hold movie nights for its young patrons. The friendly local librarians would bust out a 16mm projector and thread up kid-friendly movies — usually feature-length cartoons, with a smattering of G-rated live-action movies. I have a fairly clear memory of having a good-natured popcorn fight with a friend during a screening of the dull-even-for-kids Condorman, a now-obscure, clumsy attempt by Disney to make a superhero movie for kids. (During the film’s original release in 1980, the Baskin-Robbins across the street from the library sold “Condorman Crunch,” quite possibly the single lamest movie tie-in product of all time.)

For whatever reason, the librarians who programmed this kiddie film series had a taste for movies that combined animation and live action. It was at the library that I developed a love for Pete’s Dragon — a remake of which, holy crap, is apparently being released next year. My first exposure to Disney’s notorious Song of the South certainly took place in that same room.

This week in movies you missed: The Lazarus Effect, currently in theaters, stars Mark Duplass as a scientist trying to resurrect the dead and his relationship with Olivia Wilde. Rick Kisonak's review suggests the film is eminently missable. So I hopped on Netflix and checked out a less predictable movie that also happens to feature Duplass grappling with love troubles.

What You Missed
Ethan (Duplass) and Sophie (Elisabeth Moss of "Mad Men") are trying to rekindle that elusive spark in their marriage. They re-create the events of the night they first met, but they just aren't feeling the thrill anymore.

So their couples therapist (Ted Danson) suggests a private retreat at a gorgeous country estate. (According to IMDb, these scenes were shot at Danson and Mary Steenburgen's home in Ojai, Calif., and they offer some hardcore house/landscape porn.)

Then something odd happens.

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD, COVERING NO MORE THAN THE FIRST THIRD OF THE MOVIE:

In the property's guest house (not where they're staying), Sophie discovers Ethan. He's in a great mood, and the two enjoy an evening of banter and sex. When Sophie returns to the main house, she finds a grumpy Ethan there ahead of her, claiming he's been alone this whole time.