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AIFF runs a yearly film festival in the Fall and sponsors other film-related events year round. Films are selected that develop, promote, and increase multicultural awareness and understanding.
The Arlington International Film Festival (AIFF) is an annual nonprofit film festival dedicated to promoting and increasing multicultural awareness and showcases world cinema and independent films in their original language with English subtitles. Independent film producers, directors and actors within the US and abroad are invited to participate in engaging panel discussions and Q&A sessions after the screenings. Each year the festival greets more than 2,000 movie aficionados and shows about fifty films from all over the world with an impressive lineup of premieres. The Arlington International Film Festival also includes a year-round events such as poster contest competitions, pre-festival screenings and art exhibitions with local artists and performances by musicians, singers and dancers.
Features the work of American sculptor, Cyrus E. Dallin (1861-1944) who lived and worked in Arlington for over 40 years. His works include the Paul Revere statue in Boston's North End and Appeal to the Great Spirit in front of Boston's Museum of Fine arts.
The Jason Russell House, built in 1740, still bears bullet holes as the site of bloody fighting on the first day of the American Revolution. British soldiers, in retreat from Lexington and Concord, shot and bayoneted Jason Russell on his own doorstep. Eleven other area Minute Men, who had gathered in Arlington, due to its strategic location, also lost their lives here in the April 19, 1775 skirmish. The Jason Russell House is attached to the Smith Museum. Admission covers both.
The Old Schwamb Mill is a continuously operating site where immigrant Puritan, Yankee, and German entrepreneurs used water power from the adjacent brook to run machines and develop a series of family-owned businesses. Today the mill continues to produce museum quality hand turned wooden oval and circular frames. Visitors can tour the facility and see how these frames are made.
Prince Hall Cemetery
This historic cemetery is said to be the only remaining African American Masonic cemetery in the United States.
On exhibit in the Smith Museum is "Family Ties: 200 Years of Arlington Town Life". In 1807 West Cambridge (now Arlington) separated from Cambridge, and the exhibit celebrates the old Puritan-era settlers and the vibrant immigrant families of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Smith Museum is attached to the Jason Russell House. Admission covers both.
Commemorates Arlington as the birthplace of Samuel Wilson, better known as "Uncle Sam".