Local movie lovers will be treated to a free film festival next month when the Hawaii European Cinema lights up screens with nine films and a new name in its first independent effort since splitting with the Hawaii International Film Festival.

For five years, the festival operated under the banner EuroCinema Hawaii and partnered with HIFF, which helped curate and promote the European-centered film festival. But HIFF ended the partnership in January.

The reorganized Hawaii European Cinema is offering free screenings as a way to give back to the community, said Brent Anbe, festival director.

"It’s our initial independent year so we wanted to be thankful to all our supporters of the last five years," Anbe said. "We are looking at introducing the festival to a new audience. We look at it as an investment in the community, which has given us so much already."

The new festival will run on weekends, Oct. 16-24 at Consolidated Theatres’ Ward and Kahala theaters. The festival’s red-carpet, black-tie awards gala is scheduled for Oct. 23 at the Moana Surfrider. Tickets are $150 for the gala.

Scheduling screenings only on weekends should help fill theaters, Anbe said.

"Because we were going to give free tickets, we wanted to get the most people into theaters and that is when people are most available," Anbe said.

The festival will feature "The Measure of a Man," "Macbeth," "Sworn Virgin," "The New Girlfriend," "Chuck Norris vs. Communism," "Victoria," "Solitary" and "Do You See Me?" The closing night film Oct. 24, which is also free, is "Standing Tall."

Although free, tickets still need to be reserved through the festival’s website: hawaiieuropeancinema.org.

The split with HIFF, the state’s biggest film festival, stunned organizers of the Europe-centric festival. Often dubbed "a festival within a festival," it spent more than $125,000 to sponsor HIFF’s selection of 59 European films, including the 2012 best-picture Oscar winner "The Artist" and this year’s Oscar winner "The Imitation Game," starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

HIFF organizers felt the European festival had become too costly and time-consuming to continue the relationship.