Hundreds of film buffs flocked to the Hamptons International Film Festival for five days of innovative, independent film viewing in The Hamptons, symbolically bringing the curtain down on the summer season.

First on the schedule was the screening for the sexually charged Kinsey, starring Liam Neeson as the late Dr. Alfred Kinsey, the Indiana University biology professor who started a revolution with his controversial research on the nature of human sexuality. The off-beat post-screening party at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk featured a “sex-clinic” theme, with nurse-clad servers, hospital-bed sofas, and staff conducting mock “sex surveys” (as if enduring the documentary-style 1:58 film wasn’t trying enough...).

The premiere of the equally controversial Birth, starring Nicole Kidman, also drew a crowd. This emotion-laden Gothic romance features a young widow on the verge of remarrying, a decade after losing the love of her life, when a 10-year-old boy claims to be her reincarnated late husband.

In between movie screenings, the Festival presented its annual Golden Starfish Awards in a ceremony emceed by Bob Balaban at East Hampton’s Guild Hall. Included in the 12 awards was the Zicherman Family Foundation Award for Screenwriting, presented to actor/director/screenwriter Michael Goorjian and his four co-writers, for Illusion (our personal Festival favorite!). The legendary Kirk Douglas gives a stellar performance in this remake of Pierre Corneille’s 17th-century play, L’Illusion Comique, depicting the final days of fictional film director “Donald Baines.” The plot is a cross between A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life. Awakened one night by the ghost of his late film editor, Baines is given the chance to replay the “reels” of the life of his estranged illegitimate son. Semi-conscious, he muses about what really matters in life, and tries to redirect the closing footage, so that his son can find the love he, himself, never sought.

Earlier in the day, veterans Anthony LaPaglia and Gena Rowlands, both mentors for this year’s Rising Stars: Screen Acting Discoveries program, each received the Golden Starfish Award for Career Achievement in Acting.

Spotted at the nonstop film-and-fun fest: Festival chair Stuart Match Suna (and wife, Vicki), Sally Kellerman, Roy Scheider, Kelly Ripa, Michael Gelman, Patricia Clarkson, Barry Sonnenfeld, Jennifer Tilly, Xan Cassavetes, Tim Daly, Christine Vachon, Dieter Kosslick, Jeff Ross, Bill Condon, Niels Mueller, Mark Urman, and Beki Probst. It was total immersion — 79 films in four days.