In the winter of 1973 Joe Alves, production director for Jaws, began his quest to find the perfect setting for Amity Island.

From Montauk to Marblehead, Martha’s Vineyard was the place that met Mr. Alves’s criteria.

“Edgartown was so pristine with the white picket fences and white buildings,” he said. “It was a wonderful place to be terrified by a shark. Then when I got to Menemsha it was a great fishing village with all the little shacks. It was absolutely perfect.”

Vineyard filmmaker Bob Nixon can’t escape great white sharks. Fresh from months of shooting the apex predators in the Pacific for a Discovery Channel special, last Tuesday afternoon he again encountered the animal, this time 100 feet off the Menemsha jetty. While the veracity of recent great white sightings on the Vineyard has been the subject of some debate, Mr. Nixon is fairly confident he saw the real deal. On board with him at the time was Dr. Sylvia Earle, one of the world’s preeminent oceanographers.

Each week the folks at Cinema Circus show a series of short films on Wednesday evenings at the Chilmark Community Center. The films begin at 6 p.m. but at 5 p.m. the circus — complete with jugglers, face painters, stilt walkers, food and music — gets under way.

An advanced screening of the films was arranged. In a world with few certainties, the kid critic is the critic to trust. This week’s reviewer is Will LaFarge

The Story Tree (Dir. Stephanie Sim / Canada / 2006 / 3 min.)

When filmmaker Lauren Greenfield began filming the lives of billionaires Jackie and David Siegel, she focused on the way their story reflected different aspects of the American Dream. Mr. Siegel was a self-made man who had built the largest time-share company in the United States. Mrs. Siegel, former engineering student and fashion model, was his charming trophy wife who had her heart set on building and occupying the largest single-family home in America.

Run and Shoot may sound like a basketball slogan, but it’s actually the name of a transmedia company that founded the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival ten years ago. This year’s festival, headed by husband and wife team Floyd and Stephanie Rance, will feature close to fifty films, including shorts and feature-length films, which will screen at the Performing Arts Center, the Oak Bluffs Public Library and the Harbor View Hotel.