For the fourth year in a row, Walker Art Center has augmented Twin Cities Pride Week events with "Queer Takes," a distinctive selection of GLBT films. This year's series, dubbed "Standing Out," may be abbreviated from years past, but is no less expansive in style and genre.

Defining a GLBT film is becoming more and more vague, with gay filmmakers not necessarily tackling gay subject matter and gay subject matter being tackled by, well, everyone. What the Walker brings to the table are five unique films that are relevant to the queer community (and beyond) and are far bolder than their narrow niche.

Series curator Dean Otto admits there is a sea of titles to wade through.

"It mirrors what is going on within the whole independent film world," he said. "There are too many titles and they're fighting for a spot in an overcrowded market." Instead of relying on submissions, Otto keeps a keen eye on the festival circuit and builds upon the Walker's relationships with filmmakers.

From one such long-standing relationship comes the series' biggest surprise: John Greyson's stunning new film, "Fig Trees" (7:30 p.m. Thu.). Unlike anything you've ever seen before, "Fig Trees" is a modern opera inspired by Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson's "Four Saints in Three Acts," forged from the real lives of AIDS activists Tim McCaskell and Zackie Achmat. The result is a richly textured film that masterfully balances wry humor and profound wisdom.

Mixing documentary footage with an operatic reinterpretation of the past 20 years of AIDS activism, Greyson does not hesitate to reference "The Matrix" and "La Bohème" in the same breath. At the heart of the surreal narrative is McCaskell and Achmat's fight for equal access to information and treatment in their respective countries of Canada and South Africa. "Fig Trees" is as mind-bending as an epic palindrome, and as beautiful as an operatic aria.

Preceding "Fig Trees" is Jenni Olson's "575 Castro Street," a short homage to "Milk" the movie and Harvey Milk the man. Olson is something of a Twin Cities queer film pioneer. She founded the first Minneapolis/St Paul Lesbian, Gay, Bi & Transgender Film Festival, initially under the name Lavender Images.

The series kicks off Tuesday with much lighter fare: "Chef's Special," a comedy from Spain (7:30 p.m. Tue.). Maxi is a type-A self-absorbed chef and proprietor of a stylish restaurant in Madrid. With his restaurant in the red, two long-forgotten kids on his doorstep, and a very handsome (but very closeted) soccer player next door, Maxi's tightly controlled egomaniacal castle threatens to implode. His red-hot verbal tangents are unfiltered hilarity, but the moments of melodrama feel obligatory and ineffective.

Two documentaries about women and sports play on a double bill on Wednesday.

Homophobia in sports is nothing new, but "Training Rules" (7 p.m. Wed.) chronicles Penn State's 26 years of institutional discrimination in the women's basketball program. Head coach Rene Portland -- silently supported by her superiors -- created an atmosphere of fear with her policy of no drinking, no drugs and no lesbians. Co-directors Dee Mosbacher and Fawn Yacker meticulously interview players whose young lives were destroyed during Portland's tenure, with scholarships revoked and dreams dashed. "Training Rules" reveals policy and behavior that would never be allowed in a classroom, and exposes Portland -- still seen as a pioneer in her field -- and Penn State as oblivious but culpable villains.

Everyone heard about the failed attempt of the U.S. women's badminton team to travel to Iran for a tournament, but who heard about the successful match between a German soccer team and the Iranian women's national team? "Football Under Cover" (8:45 p.m. Wed.) champions the homegrown efforts to bridge cultural and political differences using the international language of soccer. Although the match took three years to organize, the resulting stadium full of women -- no men allowed -- is a cathartic joy for audience and players alike.

Kathie Smith is a Minneapolis writer who blogs about film at kathiesmith. blogspot.com.