From the valor of the crew of the USS Minneapolis to the success story of Fritz Mondale, and from a Soap Box Derby champ from St. Paul to a polka-playing accordion legend from Sturgeon Lake, the Minnesota Historical Society's Moving Pictures film festival has us covered.

Starting tonight with a movie about Vice President Mondale's life, and concluding Sunday with epic all-day short-film feasts at the Mall of America and the Riverview Theater, this is Minnesota's home-movie festival. But don't get the wrong impression. These home movies are not boring: They are movies about ordinary Minnesotans in extraordinary circumstances: war, presidential campaigns, the Depression and more. No one will fall asleep watching them.

They are not about anyone's day at the beach.

The free film festival is part of the Historical Society's Greatest Generation project, and began in 2006 with the hope of using the talents of local filmmakers -- amateur and professional -- to help preserve the stories of World War II-era Minnesotans. Among this year's short films are two about subjects I've had the good fortune to help chronicle in the newspaper: the last reunion of the crew of the USS Minneapolis, a much-decorated World War II heavy cruiser; and the story of Ken Porwoll, a survivor of the Bataan Death March who now, at 88, gives homeless men free haircuts as a form of repayment to the people who helped save his life, through small acts of kindness, during his years as a prisoner of war. Those films screen Sunday at the Riverview Theater, 3800 42nd Ave S. in Minneapolis.

What is most "moving" about these moving pictures is that they tell the real stories of real heroes, and some of the heroes will be in the theater.

"That's the magical moment of watching these films," says festival director Randal Dietrich, who also serves as manager of the Historical Society's Greatest Generation project. "You watch these 10-minute films and you get to know the human stories. But unlike watching a Hollywood film, then the lights come on and those people whose stories you just watched are sitting three rows away. It's amazing."

The first festival, in 2006, featured 30 films. This year, there are 52 entries, and the festival will award $10,000 in prizes, including $5,000 to the best film. Although the theme involves the Greatest Generation, many of this year's films tell stories from the 1950s, and next year's theme will reflect on the 1960s with a special emphasis on 1968 and the troubled gap between the Greatest Generation and their offspring.

Attempting to capture the stories of an entire generation of Minnesotans is difficult enough. The fact that the World War II generation is disappearing makes it even harder. But the film festival turns out to be a great way to enlist the help of today's digital generation in preserving the stories of the men and women who defeated the Axis powers, survived depression and ushered in the baby boom and the Great Society.

"We can't do it all by ourselves," says the Historical Society's Dietrich, noting that in another five or 10 years, it may be too late to preserve the stories of the Greatest Generation. "Fortunately," he says, "we have found a way, through the festival, to invite people to help us by using new technologies to tell the stories of a generation that is rich with them, but which is passing away far too quickly."

It's not just history. It's also a lesson for our times.

Dietrich says the films convey messages that are appropriate for the modern era, because they tell the stories of people who survived times even more troubled than the present. There are stories of Minnesotans who played roles in the civil rights struggles, or those who were among the first women to enter law school. Plus the stories of Joe Garelick, a Soap Box Derby champ who was a gunner on a B-24 Liberator, and Florian Chmielewski, a state legislator whose polka accordion contributions outperformed his lawmaking.

The Moving Pictures festival begins tonight at the History Center in St. Paul with a showing of a documentary on former Vice President Mondale, called, "Fritz: The Walter Mondale Story." No word on whether Sarah Palin and Joe Biden might show up to find out how Fritz invented the modern vice presidency. There are no seats available for tonight's showing of the film by local documentarian Melody Gilbert, but a second showing of the film (which will also air on TPT Channel 2 in December) has been added at 7 p.m. Friday. (Free tickets can be reserved online).

The festival concludes Sunday night with an awards program at the History Center, but the top films will be available for no charge on Local Demand from Comcast cable, and on Twin Cities Public Television beginning Nov. 9. They also will be available in local libraries during the first two weeks of November.

ncoleman@startribune.com 612-673-4400