For the Webster University Film Series, summer is carnival season, with a lineup of loopy movies that could make your head spin. The schedule for May through July is adventurous even by Webster’s high standards.

On Tuesday, May 6, it’s the local premier of “At the Death House Door,” a documentary about a Texas penitentiary chaplain, from the creators of “Hoop Dreams.”

On May 8, an Israeli film about obsessively close triplets, “Three Mothers,” kicks off the annual Celluloid Couch series, which pairs a psychologically rich film with a related lecture for three consecutive Thursday nights. (On May 15, it’s Pan’s Labyrinth”; on May 22, it’s “The Bourne Ultimatum”).

On May 9 and 10, Webster presents a new print of “Contempt,” the 1963 spoof of commercial cinema by legendary French director Jean-Luc Godard. Starring Jack Palance as a movie producer trying to make a modern “Odyssey,” it caused a scandal with some brief nudity by Brigitte Bardot.

From May 16 to 18, the magnificent Moore Auditorium will be taken over by roller-derby queens, with the documentary “Hell on Wheels” and a rumored appearance by the St. Louis’ own Arch Rival Roller Girls.

Connoisseurs of cinematic weirdness should mark their calendars for May 23 through 25, when Webster will present the documentary “Lynch” along with the director’s “Eraserhead.”

“Last Year at Marienbad,” the Alan Resnais romance that is considered one of the most inscrutable puzzles in film history, screens May 30 through June 1.

The recurring theme of the summer schedule is made manifest on June 26 with a screening of “Carny,” a documentary about sideshows, based on a book by local photographer and UMSL instructor Virgina Lee Hunter.

From June 27 to 29, local audiences can finally see “Still Life,” Jia Zhang-Ke’s award-winning 2006 docudrama about the Three Gorges Dam project, which is uprooting millions of peasants–and submerging eons of history–in central China.

And in July, Webster will devote five Thursdays to the films of Sam Fuller, the tough-guy director of “Shock Corridor” and “The Big Red One.”

Most Webster screenings are at 8 p.m. All are in Moore Auditorium, 470 East Lockwood Avenue. For more info, call 314-968-7487 or click here.