Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Les Blank will be in Denver as the Starz FilmCenter presents a three-night retrospective of his 30-year career. Howie Movshovitz, director of education for the center, will host the program, which features short films focused around the arts of moviemaking, cooking and eating, and American music.

In past showings of his film Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers, Blank has been known to cook fresh garlic in the back of the theaters so the aroma wafts through the room.

Film are shown at the Starz FilmCenter, 900 Auraria Parkway. Tickets are $9.50; $7 students, seniors. Information: denverfilm.org; 303-595-3456

7 p.m. Tuesday:

* Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980, 51 minutes): The joy of garlic in the fields, kitchens and noses.

* Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980, 20 minutes): The filmmaker told director Errol Morris that if Morris finished his film Gates of Heaven, he would eat his shoe. Morris did, and so Herzog cooks the shoe at Chez Panisse.

* A Well-Spent Life (1972, 44 minutes) Portrait of blues guitar legend Mance Lipscomb.

7 p.m. Friday:

* The Blues According To Lightnin' Hopkins (1970, 31 minutes)

* Always For Pleasure (1978, 58 minutes): Funerals, food and music in New Orleans

* Yum Yum Yum! (1990, 30 minutes): Cajun cooking, culture and music

7 p.m. Saturday:

* Burden Of Dreams (1982, 95 minutes): Blank's iconic portrait of director Werner Herzog's troubled film Fitzcarraldo, which included the hiring of hundreds of Amazonian Indians to pull a riverboat over a mountain.