Quiet launch for Hamptons International Film Festival

Things were a little quiet at last night's launch of the 19th annual Hamptons International Film Festival, with few stars to be seen. Was it the rain? Or was it the festival's move away from the Columbus Day weekend, which last year seemed to make it easier for celebrities to fit the Hamptons into their travel schedules?

At any rate, Jay and Mark Duplass, the makers of the opening-night film, "Jeff, Who Lives at Home," showed up to mockingly over-plug their movie at Guild Hall in East Hampton. "Some movies are funny and moving, some movies are thrilling and challening," Mark Duplass said. "This film is all of them."

The Duplass brothers are the kinds of celebrities movie-lovers love, having made a series of well-received indie films like "The Puffy Chair" and the Jonah Hill dramedy "Cyrus." Their new film stars Jason Segel as a stoner-slacker trying to run an errand for his exasperated mom, played by Susan Sarandon, who should be showing up to the festival this weekend.

Last night's launch party at East Hampton Point (a change from the usual Gurney's Inn location out in Montauk) was an early-starting affair, a chance to mingle with festival regulars like programmer David Nugent and director Karen Arikian, along with some new faces from the soon-to-be launched Perugia International Film Festival in Italy, which will be sharing movies and personnel with the Hamptons next year.

What, no appearance from recent donor Alec Baldwin? No, he was heading to Hyannisport for dinner with the Kennedys, according to festival chairman Stuart Match Suna. Nevertheless, things should liven up tonight with appearances from Emily Browning, Alexander Skarsgard, Anton Yelchin and Ezra Miller.

Today's schedule:

1 p.m., "Inside Lara Roxx," UA East Hampton. A documentary on a porn actress who contracted AIDS and at leastz briefly raised the industry's awareness of the disease.

2 p.m., "Charlotte Rampling: The Look," UA East Hampton. The actress talks to friends, artists and others to create what's being called a "self-portrait through others." Directed by Angelina Maccarone.

5 p.m., "Small, Beautifully Moving Parts," UA East Hampton. A comedy about a pregnant young woman questioning her readiness to become a parent. Starring Anna Margaret Hollyman, who is apparently staying in my B&B.

6:15 p.m., "Melancholia," UA. Lars von Trier's controversial comments at Cannes have overshadowed this end-of-the-world drama starring Kirsten Dunst. Perhaps co-star Alexander Skarsgard, scheduled to appear in person, will tone things down.

9:30 p.m., "Sleeping Beauty," Guild Hall. Emily Browning stars in this buzzed-about psycho-sexual drama about a college girl moonlighting as a prostitute. Browning is scheduled to attend the screening.