The inaugural BIFF is "a celebration of inner-city culture," says founder and film director Patrick Jerome. The festival’s intent is to deliver a selection of independent films that speak to Boston’s culturally diverse community — and what a collection Jerome and company have arranged! There are 50-plus features and shorts, with subject matter ranging from Woody Allen as a mobster in a short called "I Am Woody" to the use of the word "nigger" by African-Americans in the documentary Nigger or Not. In between are career resurrections of Patrick Swayze, Ted Lange (Isaac on The Love Boat), and Talia Shire (The Godfather and Rocky) plus a flick called "12 Hot Women" that claims to be a plotless short about a dozen lusty babes.

The festival’s cross-cultural label is misleading, as most of the films have a hip-hop, in-the-hood texture, though there is Shui Hen, which deals with a Chinese girl’s travels to Cuba, and the more esoteric Family Tree, a rompish take on Ovid’s tale of Baucis and Philemon. And then there’s Jerome’s own Holla at Me, a tale of two African-American brothers and their long-time buddy from the rough streets of Boston who work their way up through the crime world as hitmen. The most mercurial and colorful of the trigger-happy trio is Joe (Ty Jones), who suffers from erectile dysfunction and dementia. Think Pulp Fiction meets Viagra on a low budget and shot on the Cape. The whole Slamdance-esque — think films that didn’t cut it at bigger venues — spectacle runs July 3 through 5 at the John Hancock Hall.