After more than 30 years together, R.E.M. called it a career yesterday. Whether that’s retiring in the mode of Led Zeppelin or The Eagles remains to be seen.

But college radio’s loss is VideoFest‘s gain. That’s because the Saturday screening of R.E.M.: Collapse Into Now just got a whole lot more timely. James Franco, Albert Maysles and other directors contributed music videos for each song on the band’s last album, which were compiled into the film. It’s showing at 8:45 p.m. at the Angelika.

A couple of other quick VideoFest quick hits gleaned from a brief phone conversation with artistic director Bart Weiss:

• The festival is trying a new ticket idea out this year. If you’re not quite ready to commit to a full festival pass, you can buy a package of tickets that will get you into five programs for $20.
• Also, VideoFest has put together a pretty sweet raffle for people who go to things like VideoFest. Essentially, the winner will receive an all-festival pass for virtually every festival in North Texas. Included in the drawing are the Dallas International Film Festival, Lone Star International Film Festival, Asian Film Festival of Dallas, Outtakes and Q Cinema. Tickets are $10. “It shows the level of cooperation we have here in Dallas. It couldn’t happen anywhere else, ” Weiss says. “We have a sense of community among the people who run these festivals. Even though we have a scarcity of resources, we help each other.”