The Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival hosted its opening night party Thursday outside the film center on the bank of Lagoon Pond.

Visitors from around the country and the world helped celebrate the 19th annual edition of the festival, which began screening films on Tuesday and continues through Sunday.

Patrice Donofrio helped check in guests Thursday. She has been a part of the festival for years and said she is proud of how much it has grown since its inception.

Dining outside by the Lagoon before the screenings. — Ray Ewing

“A lot more people know about it and come to the film center, which is fabulous that we even have this film center,” she said.

Guinevere Cramer has helped out since the very beginning.

“It’s so funny to have been here at the first film festival that was small and kind of cobbled together, to now, where it draws a crowd internationally,” she said.

Both Ms. Cramer and Ms. Donofrio said that the year-round work of Richard Paradise, the organizer of the festival and the founder of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Society, has been instrumental in making it a fixture each September of the Island’s cultural scene.

Lexi Roth, of Goldies food truck. — Ray Ewing

The Bangladeshi documentary Mighty Afrin: In the Time of Floods directed by Angelos Rallis opened the festival on Tuesday, followed by Sabbath Queen, an Israeli and American documentary directed and produced by Sandi DuBowski.

Sabbath Queen follows the story of drag queen and rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie. Mr. DuBowski attended the screening and led a discussion after the film. It was his first time on the Vineyard.

“I’m wildly impressed with the cinema and the organization....Not every film festival has its own theatre,” said Mr. DuBowski. “This film society is highly curated, it has a really engaged audience. There’s a real community that you feel around this cinema.”

A short-film competition begins on Friday, with the winner announced in the evening. Sujo, a drama from Mexico, will also be shown Friday afternoon.

Sandi DuBowski, director of Sabbath Queen. — Ray Ewing

There will be three screenings on Saturday: Agent of Happiness, a Bhutanese documentary about the country’s Gross National Happiness index, The Quiet Maid, a Spanish drama about a Colombian woman working at a luxurious mansion in Spain, and Gondola, a Georgian film about two women who work on an air gondolas in the Caucasus mountains.

Sunday brings with it three more films: Adiós Buenos Aires, an Argentinian comedy/drama, Banel & Adam, a Senegalese romantic drama, and the closing night film, Sidonie in Japan, a French romantic drama.

After the final screening there will be an after-party at FISH MV, located on Main street in Vineyard Haven.

“It’s intimate and you get to see things we normally wouldn’t get to back in Washington, D.C.,” said Linda Trude, a seasonal resident who attended the festival’s opening party with her husband Mark. “Being able to make a night of it is very special.”

For film and ticket information, visit mvfilmsociety.com.