“Amy Glazer called me about this, and asked if I would be up for taking this role on,” actor and producer Wendie Malick said of 2023 film “7000 Miles,” directed by Glazer. “I thought, what a daunting proposition to play someone who may be one of the most iconic heroines … which is what made me say ‘yes.’ I can’t say no, and she knows that, and it was a challenge I couldn’t refuse.”

The Sedona International Film Festival will open for its 30th year on Saturday, Feb. 24, and the slate of 150 films shown over the course of nine days will include two films from the creative team of Malick and Glazer.

“It’s such a beautiful film.” SIFF executive director Patrick Schweiss said of “7000 Miles,” which will screen on the opening day of the festival. “Everyone knows Malick as this comic actress for her roles in ‘Hot in Cleveland,’ ‘Just Shoot Me’ and all the sitcoms she’s done. In this film, she plays a beautiful dramatic role. We fell in love with this film and immediately accepted it, and it was the first film I accepted in the lineup for 2024.”

At Malick’s encouragement, Schweiss also accepted Glazer’s 2020 film “The Surrogate,” which also stars Malick and will be screened the following day.

“We’re getting two for the price of one, and [Malick’s] a delightful human being,” Schweiss said. “[‘The Surrogate’] is a bit more of a comedy or a dramaedy. So we see two different wonderful approaches to Malick the actress. I can hardly wait to host her Q&A because she’s so friendly, and so enthusiastic, exactly what you see in her comedic roles … and I can hardly wait to meet her here in person.”

“Jo Standish [Alixzandra Dove] helps run a small private airline company in Los Angeles, 1977, with her fiance, Richard,” the film’s synopsis states. “Jo’s first love is aviation and she is an accomplished pilot, but struggles to find the opportunities she desires. Their business faces its own problems as Richard’s father threatens to pull his investment and close their hangar. Jo is caught between supporting her fiance’s dreams and navigating her own. When her beloved grandfather Bert dies, she puts everything on hold and races back to Molokai, Hawaii, to support her grandmother, Meli [Malick], who raised her.”

Meli, however, has been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, and her memories of a long-hidden airplane crash begin to surface. Jo has to confront her understanding of the family that raised her as she begins to suspect she is descended from a legendary personality in aviation history.

“I love the idea of telling the story about this incredible woman who was complex but who remains a mystery to so many,” Malick said. “It is such a great example of a woman who followed her own dream, her own passion and left some wreckage in her wake by doing. But she had a vision that she would not be stopped, she was undaunted by the challenges of her time. I felt like this was a story that needed to be told and this was an opportunity for me that doesn’t come along every day and I decided to leap with [Glazer] again.”

The themes of friendship and the importance of family are present in both of the duo’s films being shown during the festival, Glazer said.

“[‘7000 Miles’] is about strong women being there for each other and about community, and how incredibly invaluable friendships are, and that all of us have a chance to create our own communities wherever we are,” Malick said. “Those are the things that will sustain you as you go into your later years.”

Those themes are also on display in “The Surrogate,” which follows a Bay-area writer named Margaret [Erin Daniels] who, along with her college friend Billy [Louis Ozawa], enters the next chapter of her life.

“‘The Surrogate’ is a contemporary dramedy about a group of Bay-area friends in their early 40s navigating life’s messy moments together: Expecting a surrogate baby, a long and deep friendship in jeopardy, two women deciding to marry after years of living together, a novelist with crippling writer’s block,” the IMDB summary states. “Capturing this next uncharted chapter of their extended family, ‘The Surrogate’ explores the secrets and complicated nature of parenthood and the modern family, all the while testing the boundaries of love and friendship and the bioethics of surrogacy.”

There’s also a bit of art imitating life in the duo’s longstanding professional and personal relationship, Malick explained.

“I was married to her brother, she’s my ex-sister-in-law,” Malick said. “Though we’ve been divorced for many years, we’ve stayed in each other’s lives. Amy and I decided that we would remain sister-co-conspirators as we had a similar passion for theatre and film and it’s been a lovely ride.”

“Basically, every project I look at, somehow I hear [Malick’s] voice,” Glazer said. “ I was talking to my cinematographer Jim Orr, who has done four of my five feature films and I was telling him about a possible film idea. He [asked], ‘Is there a role for Wendy?’ and I said, ‘I think she could play the assistant principal.’ Because it’s more fun for me to bring her in as a producer and an actor. I call her my sister [and] my muse.”

Malick added that she was excited to return to Sedona for the showings because the Verde Valley holds special significance for her.

“My husband and I eloped [to] Sedona, we climbed a mountain there with eight of our friends and I got married there almost 30 years ago,” Malick said. “One of my oldest college friends … lives in Cornville and yeah, I have very, very fond, fond memories of that town. It is magnificent and the sunsets are unbeatable.”

“7000 Miles” will be shown Saturday, Feb. 24, at 4 p.m. at the Sedona Performing Arts Center, additionally there will be a question and answer session with Malick and Glazer the films actors: Juliet Mills, Maxwell Caulfield, Ray Abruzzo and Alixzandra Dove. Following the screening SIFF will be showing the 2022 movie “The Isle of Hope,” at 7 p.m. at SPAC along with another question and answer session with that films actors: Diane Ladd and Mary Stuart Masterson and director Damian Romay.

“‘Isle of Hope’ is a beautiful and touching drama with some humor thrown in that features stellar performances from three great actors that have been here at our festival in the past — Diane Ladd, Mary Stuart Masterson and Andrew McCarthy,” Schweiss said. “It is a touching, inspiring and uplifting family drama that so many people will relate to — facing issues that many deal with in their own families. We are honored to premiere it here at our festival.

“The Surrogate” will be shown on Sunday, Feb. 25, at 1 p.m. at the Sedona Performing Arts Center.

The full 2024 schedule of films will be available on Thursday, Feb. 1. For more information and tickets, visit sedonafilmfestival.com or call (928) 282-1177.