Capitol Hill cinemateque Northwest Film Forum's new Executive Director Vivian Hua and new Board President Raya Leary are bringing an array of new programming ideas to the nonprofit theater, including a number of literary events that are well worth your time. Honestly, it's a mystery why Seattle's movie theaters haven't embraced more bookish programming: books and movies have interacted for the entire history of film, and there's a lot of overlap between the kinds of people who attend readings and the sorts of folks who go out to movies on a weeknight.

This Thursday, January 24th, NWFF is hosting a pair of literary themed events. First up is Z-Sides, a literary variety show hosted by Seattle Lit Crawl head and Word Lit Zine publisher Jekeva Phillips. Featuring interdisciplinary art, games, prizes, and storytelling, Z-Sides promises to be more interactive — and more wide-ranging than your standard night at the bookstore.

On Thursday afternoon, too, NWFF presents the local debut of a new documentary about legendary Portland writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Made in full cooperation with Le Guin, who passed away last year, and her estate, Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin serves as a biography, a tribute, and a critical journey into her major works.

Unlike many literary documentaries about 20th century writers, Worlds enjoys plenty of exclusive interviews with its subject. The Le Guin who is interviewed here is a titan at the end of her career — someone who lived long enough to get a sense of her own impact, someone who has come to terms with the ups and downs of her own career.

In Worlds, Le Guin does feminist critique on her own early books: "Why have I put men at the center" of these stories, she asks? Like her critics, she seems disappointed in herself for using the masculine article to describe characters in The Left Hand of Darkness. But she's just as willing to turn that critical bitterness on other subjects, too: "Ernest Hemingway was unjust and full of shit," a younger Le Guin excitedly announces in archival footage from a feminist sci-fi convention.

At just over an hour, Worlds doesn't overstay its welcome, only touching on the major works and providing wider context from an array of writers including Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman, Samuel Delaney, David Mitchell, China Mieville, Vonda McIntyre, and Margaret Atwood. (It's a bit disappointing that the film has so many male voices in it; while the men speak lovingly and knowingly about Le Guin's body of work, it would be more thematically rewarding to hear from women who were inspired by Le Guin's career.)

In order to keep up some kind of visual excitement, the filmmakers present scenes from Le Guin's major books in lo-fi animated sequences. Some of the more expressionistic sequences are beautiful and moody adaptations of the work. The more literal animations suffer from a lack of budget, and a few sequences — particularly a scene of violence toward the end of the film — are almost laughably bad.

But don't let those quibbles divert you from seeing Worlds. The film is performing an important service by contextualizing the whole of Le Guin's career and placing her within a pantheon of important American artists. It's a loving portrait of an artist who, happily, lived long enough to see herself celebrated as the legend she was. Now it's up to the fans to make sure that legend lives on for generations to come.

Z-Sides: Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, https://nwfilmforum.org, 8 pm, $12.

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin plays at Northwest Film Forum from Thursday, January 24th through February 1st. Direction Arwen Curry will be in attendance on the 24th.