Big Sur Short Film Series grand finales guarantee some of best cinema of the year.

A scrawny boy fisherman who’s never caught a fish climbs onto a glistening yacht off the Somali coast, and finds himself suddenly surrounded by dead robbery victims and the dead, murderous pirates from his town, whom he happens to idolize.

But the bodies are not the most stirring discovery on board. Instead, it’s the long-haired white cat with jeweled trappings who he nearly shoots, before throwing the handgun into the sea and fleeing with the feline.

To understand why that cat represents a profound turning point in his life is to peer into a masterfully succinct, meaningful and poignant portrait of the impoverished and violent port of Mogadishu, a short film from South Africa called Asad, and to come to know characters like the awfully young pirates, the old fisherman who only talks to the young Asad and spunky kid’s best friend, whose life the unlucky little fisherman saves from marauding soldiers with a big tuna.

Just minutes later, the screen is consumed by a charming and sincere old pianist tumbling through memories of a magical life and the spooky feeling he’s being imprisoned – simultaneously – and finally emerges from the chaos for a blink of clarity, only to crash back into fragments as suddenly as he escaped. The audience is craftily woven into the confusion, wrestling with its own realities. Then, at the end, he asks his daughter, clueless to the answer, “Was I a good man?” and no watching eyes remain dry.

To understand why these films named for their protagonists were made – the Academy Award-nominated Asad with all refugee actors, Henry with the belief there is no crueler fate than knowing you don’t know yourself – is to grip the slippery and far-ranging soul of the Big Sur International Short Film Screening Series, if only for a few minutes each. They were made to take audiences places they don’t necessarily want to go – and places they certainly aren’t expecting to visit – but make them ultimately happy and changed for the travels.

And those movies were just a half of one week’s worth of 11 weeks total, all building toward early September’s double gala finale in Big Sur and downtown Monterey this week and next, respectively. Across those weeks audiences traversed both Afghanistan and Antarctica, stop-motion claymation and super-slow motion Phantom Miro camera work, chilling documentary and demanding fiction, raw tragedy and sweaty titillation. They went along on a mission with a war hero taken too soon, a father and son’s tunnel mission back home to Palestine with a heart-bursting twist and a suicidal addict’s babysitting trip to a bowling alley. There was even a hamster on its own rocket trip, a doomed man with a brain made of gold and a majorly pregnant woman on a mission to reach a river. And though the festival winnows down 800 ambitious entries to just two dozen flicks, seemingly guaranteeing greatness in each, the festival even boards the occasional clunker – but as emcee/host/Henry Miller Memorial Library ambassador Magnus Toren is fond of pointing out, even if the films suck, the rides doesn’t suck for long.

The weekly journeys make it fitting the gang at HMML is taking the benefit festival to new places, as it did with the “town” screening every Wednesday at Osio Cinemas, screenings at the Independent Marketplace in Sand City (there’s another Sept. 5) and the climactic Sept. 7 finale at Golden State Theatre.

Before the number of entries – and quality of the finalists – got really high, before the list of celebrity judges got pedigreed, before the satellite screenings spawned the “townie”-versus-Big Sur scoring rivalry, the film series was still incredible. Where else does a massive screen seem to hang between redwoods beneath starry skies and above blankets dotted with picnicky sundries, wine, bags of surprisingly good house popcorn and a tribe of culturally attuned renegades living far from city civilization?

Just that makes a chance to see the five finalists well worth the $10 ticket – after all, that one lonely 10 earns a chance to see a number short pieces which each earned a 10 on my scorecard, assuming the jury of decorated judges including Vilmos Zsigmond, Lawrence Inglee, Laurie Anderson, Susan Littenberg, Kirsten Dunst, Philip Glass and Michael Polish has a cinematic clue.

But Sunday’s Sept. 1 gala at Henry Miller also piles on its famous popcorn, organic wines from Heller Estate, chocolates courtesy of Trader Joe’s, beer from Firestone Brewery and live music from Songs Hot Box Harry Taught Us.

The Saturday, Sept. 7 event in the 900-seat Golden State Theatre also includes a sampling of treats that beat the celluloid off Goobers: passed hors d’oeuvres from Happy Girl Kitchen, more wine from Heller, craft beer from Peter B’s BrewPub, plus more chocolates and live music too. And plenty of people who like to go places, even if they don’t know where that will be.

THE 2013 BIG SUR SHORT FILM SCREENING SERIES GALA FINALES happen 7pm Sunday, Sept. 1, at Henry Miller Memorial Library, 48603 Highway 1, Big Sur, and 7pm Saturday, Sept. 7, at the Golden State Theatre, 417 Alvarado St., Monterey. $10. 667-2574, www.bigsurfilm.org