Hamptons International Film Festival highlights include Ralph Macchio, 'Kill Your Darlings'

The 21st annual Hamptons International Film Festival kicks off this week with a new slate of movies, a new executive director and a new (later) closing night.

The five-day festival opens Thursday with the Daniel Radcliffe drama "Kill Your Darlings" and continues through Monday with more than 40 other narratives and documentaries, plus roughly 45 shorts. Helena Bonham Carter, Bruce Dern and Will Forte will appear onstage for live interviews over the weekend. Other actors and filmmakers expected to attend include David Duchovny, Renée Zellweger, Edgar Wright, Spike Jonze, Dane DeHaan (among the festival's annual group of 10 Actors to Watch) and Huntington's Ralph Macchio, whose film "Across Grace Alley" screens in the shorts program Connections.

Last year's festival marked the last for executive director Karen Arikian, replaced this year by Anne Chaisson, a former juror with a film production background. Her inaugural festival as director includes one major change: Closing night will be pushed to Monday, instead of the traditional Sunday. As always, moviegoers can play catch-up with repeat screenings on Monday, but that day now includes important events such as the Golden Starfish awards ceremony and two screenings of the closing night Oscar contender "12 Years a Slave."

"We're making a concentrated effort to say that we're a five-day festival," says Chaisson. "It's Oscar season, and we can't deny that we're placed in a really great spot."

Here are some highlights of the festival.