Once again, Boston’s citywide New Year’s Eve celebration will include the opportunity to catch sneak peeks of new films and revisit highlights from 2007. more stories like this

Amid family-friendly art workshops and marionette theater shows, hot-blooded salsa grooves and buoyant swing dancing, and the pageantry and puppetry of the Grand Procession parade, the day-long First Night schedule includes a broad array of movie programming of works by folks both near and far. The lineup is good enough, in fact, that a film fan might want to simply settle in and kick off the year in celluloid (and digital) heaven.

First Night festivities are scheduled at 30 venues and locales across the city from 1 p.m. to midnight tomorrow. Among the movie events:

A First Night Film Festival at the Hynes Convention Center. Selected by Connie White, the music-themed lineup features Boston-area premieres of "We Are Together," a documentary about South African children who are members of a choir at their orphanage (1 p.m.) and a look at a rock ’n’ roll camp that teaches girls how to put together a band, deal with stage fright, and shriek up a storm in "Girls Rock!" (2:45 p.m.).

"The Air I Breathe" is a collection of four short stories about happiness, sorrow, pleasure, and love, with Sarah Michelle Gellar as a pop star (in the "Sorrow" segment) and Kevin Bacon as a man possessed by unrequited love for a woman, played by Julie Delpy, in the "Love" segment (7:30 p.m.). "Note by Note" follows the making of a Steinway piano from its beginning as a tree in Alaska to its new life as a concert-ready instrument (4:30 p.m.). "Note by Note" will also be featured in a special program at the Museum of Fine Arts later in the week; see below for details.

Two harder rock music features close out the daylong fest. The 2007 documentary "The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965" captures the moment when, as Richard Brody put it in The New Yorker, "Dylan plugged in and all hell broke loose" (7:45 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.); and "Wetlands Preserved," which details the history of the rock/punk New York City music venue (9:30 p.m.).

"Top of the Rox" - the best of the Roxbury Film Festival, at the Hynes. The Color of Film Collaborative, which co-produces the annual Roxbury film fest with ACT Roxbury, is putting together a highlight collection of shorts and one feature from the recent festival, to screen from 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Included are the 11-minute "What It’s Like to Be Homeless," by Dorchester’s Andre Woodberry, who was named best youth filmmaker at the festival for his autobiographical piece, and "Open Secrets," another short about dread, love, and growing up, by Roxbury native Faith Kakulu, winner of the most original voice award.

"I’m Through With White Girls," a comedy about a 30ish black cartoonist who decides he needs to start dating black women, was named audience favorite at the August festival (8:40 p.m.). more stories like this

The best in old and new Japanese animation, presented by the New England Anime Society, at the Hynes. Most of the films on the 10-hour program are 30 minutes or shorter, and they’ll be run back to back from 1 p.m. until about 11 p.m. At 5 p.m., the program features highlights from its Anime Boston conventions.

The society says its selection is kid-friendly and will be dubbed in English, and is intended to introduce a new audience to the genre.

Short films by teens, chosen by teenagers from Cloud Place, a studio and exhibition space at 647 Boylston St. The showcase includes work by young people from Boston to California. The organizers are also filmmakers themselves: Cloud Place notes that "when the First Night parade kicks off, keep an eye out for the Back Alley Puppet Theater’s giant puppets - their eyes will feature footage of the parade route shot by the Teen Film Curators!"

A Festival of International Short Films at the Museum of Fine Arts. Bo Smith, the head of film and video at the museum, has put together two collections of international short films. Both collections will be shown twice over the course of the day. Among them are the lush "Printed Rainbow," by Indian animator Gitanjali Rao, and "Sensorium," by Cambridge’s Karen Aqua.

The 40-page program guide with information on all the First Nights events is available online at firstnight.org.

A First Night button, which costs $15 in advance and $20 tomorrow, provides access to all the indoor events. Outdoor events are free.

CONVERSATIONS WITH: Director Ben Niles will be at the MFA on Thursday for a special show at 7:30 p.m. of his "Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037." The film tracks the intricate craftsmanship involved in making a concert-grade piano.

M. Steinert & Sons, Boston’s local Steinway dealer, is arranging for the actual piano that’s shown in the film to be at the MFA that night, and pianist and Gershwin scholar Robert Wyatt will perform a program of Gershwin music on the instrument following the movie.