PORTLAND — The Maine Jewish Film Festival (MJFF) starts its first full day of programming on Sunday, March 10, with the Women Filmmakers Forum, sponsored by the Davis Family Foundation, at Portland’s Nickelodeon Theater.

The day begins with a free continental brunch at 11 a.m., followed by a panel discussion at 11:30 a.m., “The Celluloid Ceiling: Fact and Fiction.”

The Maine Jewish Film Festival runs March 9 to 16. Tickets and full schedule details are available online at mjff.org.

The panel will feature five women, all active in the film industry: Wendy Kout, Molly Bernstein, Gabriela Bohm, Nina Zale and Sandra Forman.

Screenwriter Kout’s feature film “Dorfman in Love” opens the festival the night before.

Bernstein is co-director of the feature documentary “Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay,” which will screen following the panel discussion at 1 p.m. Bernstein’s film on Jay, widely regarded as the world’s foremost magician, had its world premiere at the recent New York Film Festival.

As mentioned earlier, the other forum panelists are Bohm, producer/ director of “In Raquel’s Footsteps,” a drama-doc on the 19th century sex trafficking of women to Argentina, and Zale, producer of the documentary “Beyond the Boundaries,” about an adaptive skiing program in Colorado created for disabled Israeli military members.

The four filmmakers will be joined by Boston-based entertainment attorney Forman, whose practice includes all aspects of fiction and non-fiction production and distribution.

Brunswick’s Louise Rosen, executive director of the MJFF, said, “It’s clear there’s still a long way to go before some real parity is achieved. But we’re proud that more than one fourth of the films we’re presenting have women in the key production roles. This forum is intended to provide a way for Maine’s media community — students, emerging filmmakers, seasoned professionals and anyone interested in film — to learn from these women filmmakers and gain insight into the state of the industry. And with the support of the Davis Family Foundation, we were able to bring the filmmakers and entertainment attorney Sandra Forman to Portland.”

The festival takes place at the Nickelodeon Cinema in downtown Portland at 1 Temple St. and other locations around Portland and the state, including USM’s Abromson Center, The Frontier in Brunswick, Colby College and a post-festival special screening of “Dorfman in Love” at the Bangor Opera House on Sunday, March 17.

The Maine Jewish Film Festival is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide a forum for the presentation of films to enrich, educate and entertain a diverse community about the Jewish experience. Portland is the smallest city in the nation to boast an independent, professional Jewish film festival.

Tickets and full schedule details are available online at mjff.org