HCAF 2024 will feature a wide variety of curated feature films with a focus on the diverse cultural community of Houston, Texas.
HCAF 2024 will also see the tenth Anniversary of CineSpace, our annual short film competition with NASA, as well as the fifth annual regional short film competition Borders - No Borders.
Our full festival lineup has been announced. Check out the schedule to discover the incredible films, performances, and special guests we have in store!
Schedule of Events:
November 7, 2024
5:30 pm: Opening Night Reception
Join us for the 2024 Houston Cinema Arts Festival Opening Night Reception at the Granger's Restaurant and Bar with complimentary lite bites and refreshments.
Admission into this event is exclusive to All Access Passholders and ticket holders to the Opening Night film, Tendaberry.
7:30 pm: Tendaberry
Featuring a post-film discussion with Houston born and raised writer-director Haley Elizabeth Anderson and star Kota Johan.
Our opening night selection for the 2024 Houston Cinema Arts Festival is a kinetic portrait of Dakota (Kota Johan), a twentysomething New York City transplant adrift in post-pandemic Brooklyn from writer-director Haley Elizabeth Anderson. When her boyfriend (Yuri Pleskun) is called back to his native Ukraine to care for his ailing father, Dakota is forced to navigate the city and its hardships alone and pregnant. Buzzing through the streets, she flits from job to job, moment to moment, creating memories of her own along the way. TENDABERRY makes use of Anderson's own DV recordings, the photographs of Helen Levitt, as well as the video diaries of Nelson Sullivan, who captured New York City's dilapidated 1980s downtown in 1900 hours of footage, to craft an impressionist character study of person and place. Audacious, ambitious - words do little justice when describing the scale of the collection of memories contained in Anderson's feature-length debut, an ecstatic love letter to New York City and the changes each season can bring to a life.
Director: Haley Elizabeth Anderson
Runtime: 117 minutes
November 8, 2024
7:30 pm: Reality Bites
In honor of the 30th anniversary of the Houston-filmed cult classic, HCAF presents REALITY BITES with screenwriter Helen Childress in attendance for a special post-film discussion.
Reality Bites
The children of Coca-Cola and divorce, Gen X discovers reality bites in this now classic slacker comedy about friends, credit cards, and decaf from screenwriter Helen Childress. The iconic Winona Ryder is Lelaina, a recent college graduate and aspiring filmmaker who turns her camera on friends and roommates Troy (Ethan Hawke), Vicky (Janeane Garofolo) and Sammy (Steve Zahn) in a bid to create the next great American documentary before meeting uptight television exec Michael (Ben Stiller). Between cigarette drags, trips to the Gap, and calls to the Psychic Friends hotline - expect sex, break-ups, make-ups, Schoolhouse Rock, and an honest look at growing up after you've already grown.
Director: Ben Stiller
Runtime: 98 minutes
9:00 pm: Harmonie
For those who think FANTASTIC PLANET is tame comes the interstellar saga of Jésus Pérez, space explorer from Planet Earth. He is determined to unravel the mysteries of Harmonie, a bizarro exoplanet reminiscent of a Bosch painting on acid: from wolf-turtle hybrids to an *** with eyes, all creatures that live here can utter the words "yes" and "no" with a musical voice and reproduce with each other with no limitations. A lo-fi, 3D animated masterpiece of astronomical proportions from the mind of Bertrand Dezoteux, a self-described "amateur anthropologist, an observer of life in virtual worlds."
Director: Bertrand Dezoteux
Runtime: 74 minutes
November 9, 2024
10:00 AM: BORDERS - NO BORDERS: Narrative Shorts
Cultural exchange is often thought of as happening between countries, but it can also take place between cities, states, and even neighborhoods - anywhere a border is perceived or imposed. Houston is the most diverse city in the United States, and Texas, in addition to being the largest state in the continental U.S., shares borders with Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Mexico, which each have their own distinct cultures and identities. These regions inform Houston's past, present, and future with their cultures, histories, cuisines, ancestral and contemporary sacrifices, injustices, unceded lands, art, music, dance, theater, film, and storytellers. Borders - No Borders celebrates the complexity of Houston and its neighboring communities, all of which contribute to H-Town's je ne sais quoi. Programmed by Michael Robinson, the two-part documentary and narrative short-film competition celebrates the rich narratives of the South and invites submissions from Texas and neighboring regions as well as filmmakers with meaningful ties to these areas.
11:30 AM: Workshop: Film Distribution in the Age of Disruption, with Kyle Henry
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." and the same is true always for film distribution.
You've made your short or feature, what next? How do you get it seen by its intended audience when all the old routes like festivals, theatrical, broadcast, and the VODs seem to be collapsing? You go back to basics, and target, innovate, and create workable plans!
Learn from director/producer and self-distribution stalwart Kyle Henry as he takes you through a case study on the distribution of his NY and LA Times Critics Pick fiction feature Rogers Park (2018) and new non-fiction feature Time Passages (2024), screening at this year's Houston Cinema Arts Fest, about current pathways to finding your audience.
11:30 AM: La Cocina
Not all cooking is done in the kitchen. Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios (GÜEROS, MUSEO) adapts the acclaimed stage play by Arnold Wesker into a black-and-white confection, sticky and sweet with emotions. Nearly two dozen main characters intersect at The Grill, a buzzing restaurant in Times Square where $800 have disappeared from the till. All eyes turn to Pedro (Raúl Briones), an undocumented cook in love with waitress Julia (Rooney Mara). The pressure rises - a mix of tragedy and comedy that reflects the chaos of the kitchen as much as the changing fortunes of the lives at stake, and threatens to consume the restaurant itself. You know what they say: if you can't stand the heat…
Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios
Runtime: 139 minutes
12:30 pm: The Black Sea
Filmmakers Crystal Moselle and Derrick B. Harden join us for a post-film discussion following the Houston premiere of their restorative new comedy.
The latest film from Crystal Moselle (THE WOLFPACK and SKATE KITCHEN), inspired by co-director/writer/star Derrick B. Harden's own travels, asks the question: "What happens when a charismatic big dreamer gets stuck in a small town on the Black Sea?" What indeed! Lured by the prospect of romance and faraway adventure, lonely Brooklyn barista Khalid packs up for Bulgaria only to get his passport stolen and find himself penniless - and the only Black man in sight. With no place to go and abandoned by friends and family, he turns on the charm for the locals, earning their trust and acceptance in the process. Full of heartwarming energy from its largely improvised performances, this fish-out-of-water tale is all about making a home wherever you land.
Director: Crystal Moselle, Derrick B. Harden
Runtime: 93 minutes
2:30 pm: Candy Mountain (35mm)
As a chronicler of societal margins, Swiss American photographer and documentary filmmaker Robert Frank captured the essence of postwar America. In the 1950s, Frank took to the road to photograph the collection of images that would become The Americans, his seminal 1958 publication which laid bare the realities of the American dream. Confronting and reflective, honest and unpretentious, Frank never stopped showing us who we are through his countercultural photographic and documentary works. Bridging the gap between the two is CANDY MOUNTAIN.
The criminally under-seen rock 'n' roll road movie from Frank and longtime collaborator Rudy Wurlitzer (TWO LANE BLACKTOP) sees Kevin O'Connor as a down-on-his-luck musician looking to strike it rich by locating elusive guitar-maker Elmore Silk, whose creations turn a major profit in the music scene. What was meant to be a simple journey takes a series of wrong turns leading to a revelatory conclusion in the Canadian wilderness. A forgotten cult classic of the 1980s with a decidedly 1960s spirit, presented in 35mm and featuring real-life music legends Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Joe Strummer, Dr. John, David Johansen, and more.
Director: Rudy Wurlitzer, Robert Frank
Runtime: 91 minutes
3:15 pm: BORDERS - NO BORDERS: Documentary Shorts
Cultural exchange is often thought of as happening between countries, but it can also take place between cities, states, and even neighborhoods - anywhere a border is perceived or imposed. Houston is the most diverse city in the United States, and Texas, in addition to being the largest state in the continental U.S., shares borders with Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Mexico, which each have their own distinct cultures and identities. These regions inform Houston's past, present, and future with their cultures, histories, cuisines, ancestral and contemporary sacrifices, injustices, unceded lands, art, music, dance, theater, film, and storytellers. Borders - No Borders celebrates the complexity of Houston and its neighboring communities, all of which contribute to H-Town's je ne sais quoi. Programmed by Michael Robinson, the two-part documentary and narrative short-film competition celebrates the rich narratives of the South and invites submissions from Texas and neighboring regions as well as filmmakers with meaningful ties to these areas.
Sangre Violenta / Sangre Violeta
Why does the Mexican government consider the feminist movement a bigger threat than most drug cartels? The short documentary 'SANGRE VIOLENTA / SANGRE VIOLETA' interweaves three narratives, illuminating the motivations behind their activism in Mexico. These stories include a radical feminist collective, an inspiring survivor of an acid attack, and a grieving father who tragically lost his seven-year-old daughter to femicide.
Director: Arturo R. Jiménez, Edna Diaz
Runtime: 15 minutes
5:00 pm: Boys Go to Jupiter
Preceded by a special introduction by producer Peisin Yang Lazo followed by a short comedic presentation by the film's voice talent Demi Adejuyigbe.
A hilarious, absurdist feature length debut from Julien Glander, who made a name for himself on projects for Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, and Disney. Featuring the voice talents of "Demi" Adejuyigbe, Chris Fleming, Julio Torres, Sarah Sherman, Joe Pera, Cole Escola and more. As fresh as oranges!
Boys Go to Jupiter
Teenage high school dropout Billy 5000 (voiced by Jack Corbett, visual host of Planet Money's TikTok account) is at odds with his friends Freckles (Grace Kuhlenschmidt), Beatbox (Elsie Fisher), and Peanut (J.R. Phillips), who don't subscribe to his rise-and-grind mentality. While hustling in suburban Florida to make $5000 delivering food for Grubster, he encounters and befriends a gelatinous blue alien named Donut who's being hunted by juice mogul Dr. Dolphin (Janeane Garafolo). From there unfolds an idiosyncratic lo-fi 3D fantasia, complete with a deadpan critique of capitalism, mutant fruits from moon rocks - and have we mentioned it's also a musical?
Director: Julian Glander
Runtime: 90 minutes
7:30 pm: Basquiat (Black and White 4K Restoration)
Whether you're seeing it for the first time or not, you've never seen BASQUIAT like this - in black and white and fully restored in 4K. From visual artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel comes an evocative personal rendering of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, told in a series of vignettes tracing his turn from street kid graffiti artist to one of the most influential figures of the 20th century.
A touchstone of '90s independent cinema, announcing the arrival of a great talent (Jeffrey Wright in his first starring role), it remains a benchmark for biopics and an illuminating portrait of the artist and his creative process. Featuring a veritable gallery of film icons: Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Benicio del Toro, Parker Posey, Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and David Bowie as Andy Warhol.
Director: Julian Schnabel
Runtime: 107 minutes
8:15 pm: Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted
Somewhere in the Valley lives Swamp Dogg. He's 81, he just finished a US tour in support of his new album, and he is the star of the most heartwarming doc of the year. And yes, he wants to get his pool painted, together with roommates Moogstar and Guitar Shorty and some friends who are just hanging out (Johnny Knoxville, SpongeBob voice actor Tom Kenny, and more). Co-directors Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson invite you to enter the wild, psychedelic soul wonderland of a true musical icon who's lived as many lives as he's worked across genres. Quirky, funny, and life-affirming - whether or not you're a fan when it starts, you're guaranteed to be one by the time it's over.
Director: Isaac Gale, Ryan Olson
Runtime: 97 minutes
10:30 pm: In Performance: Swamp Dogg
Performance included with ticket to the film, Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted.
November 10, 2024
10:00 AM: Arts Market
The 2024 Houston Cinema Arts Festival is helping connect the arts and local communities with this special pop-up arts market experience full of artists, small vendors, and more.
11:00 AM: Time Passages
In the early stages of the pandemic, filmmaker Kyle Henry finds himself separated from his mother as she succumbs to late-stage dementia in a nursing home. At risk of losing her to COVID-19, he is forced to reckon with the impending loss. Pouring over his extensive family archive to travel back in time and explore the complexities of his feelings towards their relationship, he begins to assemble a scrapbook of memories, digital and Kodachrome, and discovers that beneath the grainy Super-8 home movies and Zoom family singalongs lies a complicated story of motherhood and self-sacrifice. With this warm, vivid expression of love, Kyle Henry comes to terms with his own guilt in an expressive act of mourning – a moving testament to the bonds between mother and child.
Director: Kyle Henry
Runtime: 86 minutes
12:00 pm: Characters Disappearing: Work-in-Progress Screening
The 2024 Houston Cinema Arts Festival work-in-progress selection, this special screening of the unfinished work invites attendees to discuss the film with director/writer/star Connor Sen Warnick and co-star Dylan Breaux and welcomes feedback via cards given to each ticket holder. Moderated by Karen Fang.
1971, New York's Chinatown. A photographer and leader of a radical political activist organization prepares to leave the city as her cousin seeks enlightenment in the teachings of a 250-year-old monk and her lover begins to question his life's pursuits. A shadowplay tracing the outlines of the past and pulling from his own family history and personal encounters with anti-Asian violence, Connor Sen Warnick's debut feature is an evocative haunting of the present.
Director: Connor Sen Warnick
2:30 pm: Jimmy
This program is supported by Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities Texas.At the age of 24, James Baldwin left New York and relocated to Paris. As an expatriate, he would spend much of the next decade writing his early books in the Café de Flore and immersing himself in the artistic community of the Left Bank. The impressionistic first feature from photographer and filmmaker Yashaddai Owens, JIMMY reimagines a young James Baldwin as a flâneur guided by his desires, led to discover the city through his senses. Set to a series of discordant jazz inflections by Paco Andreo, this edifying work of self-liberation, abstract and inventive in its approach, avoids dry facts for something thrillingly alive with youth, wonder, and discovery.
Director: Yashaddai Owens
Runtime: 67 minutes
4:30 pm: Panel Conversation: From Research to Screenplay
Filmmakers Connor Sen Warnick (CHARACTERS DISAPPEARING) and Yashaddai Owens (JIMMY) join us in a conversation to discuss the process of transposing hard facts to poetry. From the little-known radical histories of 1970s Chinatown to a reimagined portrait of a young James Baldwin in Paris, these small-budgeted, 16mm features navigate the often difficult journey of compiling multiple stories and sources into a consistent and compelling narrative, unearthing the beauty of reality along the way.
5:30 pm: Bird
Writer-director Andrea Arnold returns to the gritty social realism of FISH TANK and the Oscar-winning WASP, but as always, the British auteur subverts our expectations - here taking flight with a fantastical tale of transformation. Twelve-year-old Bailey (newcomer Nykiya Adams) lives with her single father Bug (a tattooed Barry Keoghan) and brother Hunter (Jason Buda) in a squat in North Kent. Bug struggles to find time for his children, leading Bailey to seek adventure elsewhere. Leaving the graffiti-covered walls of the squat where her family resides, she meets Bird (Franz Rogowski), an eccentric dreamer who dares her to spread her wings. A striking coming-of-age tale that hides its magic in plain sight.
Director: Andrea Arnold
Runtime: 119 minutes
6:00 pm: ME and It's Such a Beautiful Day
Charming and deadpan, the minimalist animation of Texas-based Academy Award-nominated director Don Hertzfeldt contemplates existence - and all its implications - through refined storytelling, earning fans and plaudits the world over. Deceptive in their simplicity, it is a testament to the depth of Hertzfeldt's talents that he is able to imbue such beauty and humanity into stick figures. The Houston Cinema Arts Festival is proud to present "one of the best animated films of all time" and Hertzfeldt's sole feature to date, IT'S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY, screening alongside his new 22-minute short ME.
November 11, 2024
7:30 pm: The Life of Sean DeLear
A pioneering fixture of Los Angeles' "Silver Lake scene" in the '80s and '90s, artist, musician, and globetrotting scenester Sean DeLear transcended the barrier of race, gender, and sexuality decked out in a wig and pumps as the lead singer of the power pop/punk band Glue, and later as a cabaret performer in Vienna. Alongside the posthumous 2022 publication of I Could Not Believe It, fearlessly intimate and explicit teenage diaries chronicling pre-AIDS queer culture, THE LIFE OF SEAN DELEAR is a vivid, in-your-face sketch of an artist always in the process of creating, be it music or themselves. Culling from DeLear's video archives and writings and reminiscences from friends Ann Magnuson, Rick Owens, Michele Lamy and more, director Markus Zizenbacher crafts a loving reverie, as rhapsodic a song as a documentary. But make no mistake - this ain't no ballad; it's punk.
Director: Markus Zizenbacher
Runtime: 82 minutes
November 12, 2024
7:30 pm: The Spook Who Sat by the Door (4k)
Houston Cinema Arts Festival is honored to present the film alongside a discussion with Natiki Pressley and Nomathandé Dixon, daughters of Sam Greenlee and Ivan Dixon, and moderated by Gordon S. Williams of Lamar University.
The Spook Who Sat by the Door
A revolution committed to celluloid, THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR is an incendiary adaptation of the novel by Sam Greenlee, a fictionalized telling of the first Black CIA agent brought to the screen by director Ivan Dixon. Angry about not having the black vote, a senator pressures the CIA into integrating. Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook) is the sole man to complete the rigorous training, learning the ins and outs of guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and unarmed combat, only to see the CIA put his newly-acquired skills to use by putting him on desk duty - by the front door, so the public can see him. Little do they know, Mr. Freeman has plans of his own for his skills - and they don't include quietly letting them go to waste. So compelling was its message that the film was pulled from theaters a mere week after its release for fears it would incite audiences to follow its lead.
Director: Ivan Dixon
Runtime: 102 minutes
November 13, 2024
7:30 pm: I'm Not Everything I Want to Be
In the last decades of the Soviet Union, a young, queer female photographer breaks free from the constraints of the repressive Czechoslovakian regime and embraces the underground hedonism of the times on a wild journey to freedom and self-acceptance. Based on the work and diaries of Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková, dubbed the 'Nan Goldin of Czechoslovakia' for her raw snapshots documenting the lives of queer individuals, migrants and other marginalized peoples, I'M NOT EVERYTHING I WANT TO BE captures her experiences through thousands of subjective photographs. Truly a life lived in pictures.
Director: Klára Tasovská
Runtime: 91 minutes
7:30 pm: On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
In the much anticipated follow-up to her widely acclaimed debut I AM NOT A WITCH, Zambian-Welsh director Rungano Nyoni explores the aftermath of a mysterious death over a days-long funeral ceremony through the eyes of the deceased's family, including Shula who discovered the lifeless corpse on the side of the road. As the initial display of grief gives way to dark revelations about who their loved one truly was, Shula has to make a choice: must she remain silent or transform herself into the voice of those who have been silenced for so long? From A24 comes an elliptical, seriocomic fable about the lies we tell ourselves.
Director: Rungano Nyoni
Runtime: 98 minutes
November 14, 2024
7:30 pm: John Waters LIVE Commentary of Hairspray [All Access Passholders RSVP]
John Waters, The Pope of Trash, comes to Houston for his first ever live and in person director's commentary of his original HAIRSPRAY! A special pre-show trailer reel will kick things off, followed by the main event, the screening of Hairspray with live commentary by Waters, followed by a QandA. VIP ticket holders will join in a Group Therapy Experience with Waters afterwards.
Attendees also have the chance to sign up for the VIP Group Therapy Experience which includes: preferred seating, an autographed show poster, and a socially distanced selfie with John on stage with you in the foreground, in front of the stage (better safe than sorry!)
"Hairspray is the only really devious movie I ever made. The musical based on it is now being performed in practically every high school in America... Pink Flamingos was preaching to the converted. But Hairspray is a Trojan horse: It snuck into Middle America and never got caught." - John Waters
Hairspray
'Pleasantly plump' teenager Tracy Turnblad achieves her dream of becoming a regular on the Corny Collins Dance Show. Now a teen hero, she starts using her fame to speak out for the causes she believes in, most of all integration. In doing so, she earns the wrath of the show's former star, Amber Von Tussle, as well as Amber's manipulative, pro-segregation parents. The rivalry comes to a head as Amber and Tracy vie for the title of Miss Auto Show 1963.
Director: John Waters
Runtime: 92 minutes
7:30 pm: Their Hair Was Perfect, But The World Was A Mess: John Waters LIVE Commentary of Hairspray
John Waters, The Pope of Trash, comes to Houston for his first ever live and in person director's commentary of his original HAIRSPRAY! A special pre-show trailer reel will kick things off, followed by the main event, the screening of Hairspray with live commentary by Waters, followed by a QandA. VIP ticket holders will join in a Group Therapy Experience with Waters afterwards.
Director: John Waters
Runtime: 92 minutes
November 15, 2024
7:30 pm: Basquiat (Black and White 4K Restoration)
Whether you're seeing it for the first time or not, you've never seen BASQUIAT like this - in black and white and fully restored in 4K. From visual artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel comes an evocative personal rendering of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, told in a series of vignettes tracing his turn from street kid graffiti artist to one of the most influential figures of the 20th century.
A touchstone of '90s independent cinema, announcing the arrival of a great talent (Jeffrey Wright in his first starring role), it remains a benchmark for biopics and an illuminating portrait of the artist and his creative process. Featuring a veritable gallery of film icons: Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Benicio del Toro, Parker Posey, Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and David Bowie as Andy Warhol.
Director: Julian Schnabel
Runtime: 107 minutes
7:30 pm: All, or Nothing at All [Version 1]
Jiajun "Oscar" Zhang is undoubtedly an ambitious filmmaker. His debut feature ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL is not one film but arguably two, and will be presented as such at the 2024 Houston Cinema Arts Festival.
All, or nothing at all
In the vast 270,000 square meters of retail sprawl of Shanghai's Global Harbor, two pairs of young adults traverse the loneliness of contemporary China, first as a lovestruck amateur filmmaker and the object of his obsession, a cosmetics salesgirl, then as an aspiring architect enamored with a dance instructor. Using an innovative two-part conception which can be played in any order, Chinese director/co-writer Zhang and South Korean co-writer Hee Young Pyun capture the emptiness reflected in the sheen of the shopping mall's marble halls with a script that moves as an escalator, delivering the viewer to whichever conclusion they prefer to arrive at.
Director: Jiajun 'Oscar' Zhang
Runtime: 124 minutes
November 16, 2024
10:00 AM: Workshop: Cinematography on Celluloid
Cinematography on Celluloid is a hands-on workshop that will show the technical and creative side of celluloid filmmaking. The workshop will go over workflow on celluloid and provide information so you're ready to shoot your next project on film!
We will also be shooting a scene where students will get hands-on and operate the cameras. This scene will also simulate and inform on what to be aware of when shooting celluloid. Shooting on various formats from Super 35 with the Panavision Millennium XL2, 16mm on the SR2 and Bolex Systems, and super 8 with various cameras
Kelvin Kataria is a Peruvian-Indian Director of Photography based in Los Angeles. Kelvin is a huge proponent of prep and commitment to the story, as opposed to focusing on beautiful visuals alone. With over six years experience as a working as a narrative DP; Kelvin's approach to cinematography stems from his involvement to the arts community and from filmmakers community engagement.
Kelvin is a Cohort in Issa Rae's Find Your People program as a cinematographer and is an ambassador for Assistant Camera Friends Community. He's also a member of ASCF Celluloid Community
10:30 AM: Spaces of Exception
The Palestinian refugee camp and the American Indian reservation - each sites under the constant threat of genocide at the hands of colonial forces - are observed and juxtaposed in an attempt to understand the significance of the land, its memory and divisions, and the conditions for life, community, and sovereignty. Shot between 2014 and 2017, SPACES OF EXCEPTION features interviews with members of the American Indian Movement, the Mohawk Warrior Society, and Diné families resisting displacement on Black Mesa, as well as Palestinian militant organizations based in the camps, alongside environmental activists, autonomous youth committees, and the families of political prisoners and martyrs. A timely and resonant work from co-directors Matt Peterson and Malek Rasamny, the film does more than give human face to the headlines: it gives a voice to those who are rarely spoken for.
Director: Matt Peterson, Malek Rasamny
Runtime: 90 minutes
1:00 pm: Us and the Night
Night after night, two library workers cross paths as castaways among the aisles. A pair of adventurers, their wordplay is written in books placed on the shelf each for the other to find as the library's symmetry, rhythms, and recurrences form a fantastic geography for their stories and escapades. Director-writer Audrey Lam weaves through the labyrinthine shelves of the library, grabbing books at random, and flipping through their pages with the abandon of a speed reader. Captured on lush 16mm over the course of ten years, the script is a clever and seemingly endless reference material with sly nods to the works of Italo Calvino, Elizabeth Bishop, Jean Rhys, and Emily Dickinson. A book-ish love story, open and closed at both end
Director: Audrey Lam
Runtime: 67 minutes
1:30 pm: In Performance: Dory Previn Covers
Opening her 1970 solo debut album with the song "Scared to be Alone," noted lyricist of songs for Dionne Warwick, Frank Sinatra, and Judy Garland, Dory Previn announced herself as an artist in her own right. Raw and starkly autobiographical, her lyrics laid bare a complex life with humor and grace, winning the musician the admiration of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Elton John, and Jarvis Cocker, seeing her later covered by Father John Misty and immortalized by Camera Obscura. Previn's songs will be interpreted by Julia Greenberg, a singer-songwriter who has been performing, studying and archiving the music of Dory Previn since 2008, and cult musician Gretchen Phillips in a special one-time-only performance before the Houston premiere of DORY PREVIN: ON MY WAY TO WHERE, a new documentary on the one-of-a-kind musician.
2:15 pm: Dory Previn: On My Way To Where
A former model and chorus girl, Dory Previn first rose to notoriety as a lyricist for Hollywood films such as THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and THE STERILE CUCKOO. Her work with husband composer André Previn led to critical plaudits and several Academy Award nominations before their partnership came to a traumatic end following André's affair with 23-year old Mia Farrow, leading to a months-long hospitalization. This life-altering moment ignited a radical act of self-love and acceptance from Dory: starting with her 1970 autobiographical album On My Way to Where, she reinvented herself as a singer-songwriter in a series of introspective albums that paired her trademark sharp wit with haunting confessional tales of loneliness, loss, and self-doubt. Co-directors Julia Greenberg and Dianna Dilworth combine archival footage, interviews, animation, and Previn's own journal entries and lyrics in a refreshing documentary, avoiding the redemption arc we've come to expect to tell the altogether more powerful story of a woman who dared to confront her own complexity.
Director: Julia Greenberg, Dianna Dilworth
Runtime: 79 minutes
2:30 pm: Houston Stories: For the Rebels
New to this year's Houston Cinema Arts Festival, "Houston Stories: For the Rebels" is a collection of short films by emerging Houston filmmakers, featuring documentary, narrative, and animated projects. While loosely centered around themes of rebellion, these films explore the spirit of those who challenge the status quo and push boundaries in Houston's ever-evolving landscape through personal narratives and bold cultural reflections. From stories of resistance and perseverance to acts of creative defiance, this program celebrates the diverse voices shaping the city's unique character.
4:30 pm: Workshop: From the Ground Up, Producing with Academy Award winner Amy Hobby
The work of American film producer Amy Hobby spans feature-length narratives, documentaries, television, and webseries. Her credits include SECRETARY, HAMLET, and WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and won an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award. A longtime champion of independent filmmaking, Hobby is the co-founder of Distribution Advocates, an organization working to "collectively reclaim power for independent storytellers in the current systems of distribution and exhibition." In this guided workshop moderated by Alfred Cervantes of the Houston Film Commission, Hobby shares her unique behind-the-scenes perspective gained from 20+ years of producing motion pictures and offers tips and helpful advice to filmmakers hoping to get their project into production.
5:00 pm: All, or Nothing at All [Version 2]
In the vast 270,000 square meters of retail sprawl of Shanghai's Global Harbor, two pairs of young adults traverse the loneliness of contemporary China, first as a lovestruck amateur filmmaker and the object of his obsession, a cosmetics salesgirl, then as an aspiring architect enamored with a dance instructor. Using an innovative two-part conception which can be played in any order, Chinese director/co-writer Zhang and South Korean co-writer Hee Young Pyun capture the emptiness reflected in the sheen of the shopping mall's marble halls with a script that moves as an escalator, delivering the viewer to whichever conclusion they prefer to arrive at.
Director: Jiajun 'Oscar' Zhang
Runtime: 124 minutes
6:00 pm: RATS!
Fresno, Texas, 2007. It was just a bit of graffiti that landed Raphael Tinski (Luke Wilcox) in the county jail. What happened next would make him wish he'd never left his cell: the community service, the sting operation, the suicide, the emo girl, Steve Irwin, Flophouse's new mix-tape, the meth pipes, the FBI, the WMDs, and, oh yeah, the serial killer. Sure, it's all a bit much, but in Fresno - what's a kid to do?
Featuring a series of truly demented appearances from the likes of John Ennis (MR. SHOW), Jacob Wysocki (UNFRIENDED), Pineapple Tangaroa (DRUNK BUS), Luxy Banner (LOUSY CARTER), John Valley (THE PIZZAGATE MASSACRE), and in his final performance, Neville Archambault (13 CAMERAS), the first feature from Maxwell Nalevansky and Carl Fry is a hilarious, unpredictable gross-out comedy with as much guts as heart. To call it one of the most disgusting films in recent memory is truly an honor.
Director: Maxwell Nalevansky, Carl Fry
Runtime: 87 minutes
8:00 pm: It Was All a Dream
From Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, producer, and writer dream hampton, former music journalist for publications like The Source and The Village Voice, comes an intimate chronicle of the dawn of hip-hop's golden era. By pointing her camera at the likes of Snoop Dogg, Method Man, and the Notorious B.I.G right before they took over the charts, she does not just capture their raw testimonies on the upcoming cultural shift that will make them superstars, but also examines the fraught relationship between hip-hop and feminism and how the two informed her life and career as a storyteller and filmmaker. A deeply resonant work of intimacy, more urgent than ever.
Director: dream hampton
Runtime: 83 minutes
10:30 pm: In Performance: Kam Franklin
This event is All Access Passholder and Guest Artist Exclusive. Event generously underwritten by HCAS Board Member Justice Tirapelli-Jamail and Co-Presented by Wonky Power.
November 17, 2024
12:00 pm: Colors, Nailed to the Mast: New Experimental Cinema
A Black Screen Too
A sequel to her earlier Black Rectangle, and reminiscent of Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren's groundbreaking animations, Rhayne Vermette's buzzing miniature A Black Screen Too is a burst of colour and movement undercut by darkness.
Director: Rhayne Vermette
Runtime: 2 minutes
Careless Passage
"Now that I'm in motion again, I look forward to the passage from this life to future wanderings in unknown places. My film alludes to and appreciates the encounters that flow without ceasing as we move through our personal version of reality" (Jerome Hiler).
Director: Jerome Hiler
Runtime: 20 minutes
b/w
This film uses close focus cinematography of text from commercial house paint samples to suggest a mythology of light and shadow. The audience is asked to participate during the screening by reading the paint names aloud. - Anthology Film Archives
Director: Christopher Harris
Runtime: 3 minutes
Farsi seme
"Farsi seme is silent. Silent like the plants that surround us. Silent like the seeds that I began to collect in places where I would go for a walk. Collecting blood, collecting seeds. The power of seeds represented the intersection of solidarity and singularity: it wasn't only a no-longer-being-a-flower. There was a multiplicity of forms, a lushness, the intricate delicacy of their forms… I thought of translating venous and menstrual bloods into two different natural pigments, hematite and rubia tinctorum". (Anna Marziano)
Director: Anna Marziano
Runtime: 10 minutes
Sinking Feeling
In Zachary Epcar's Sinking Feeling, human bodies and voices are counterposed with the shimmering abstractions, ambient fizzle, and rigid linearity of corporate architecture. A disquieting glimpse into a post-post-modernity of dread and torpor, Sinking Feeling peels back the surfaces of these Ballardian non-places to release pent-up fluids, a stifled longing, a hidden radiance.
Director: Zachary Epcar
Runtime: 21 minutes
A Sense of Nothing
A film motivated by nothing (but daily life and (my) vision). It represents nothing, it signifies nothing. There's no hidden meaning, no defined subject, no predetermined objective. Inside and outside. Just angles, textures and flashes of color. A whole different empire of vision, impossible to be put into words. "Nothing" as anything outside common visual knowledge, anything that defies the logic of naming the world; a possibility for a new way of thinking; of dealing with our visual world.
Director: Francisco Rojas
Runtime: 4 minutes
Our Cave
Magritte doubted Plato's allegory of the cave through his painting The Human Condition(1935). In the 18th century Joseon Dynasty, Shin Don Bok put together the anecdote collection Hak San Han Eon, which includes a story of two people willingly venturing deep into a cave rather than seeking light outside, eventually reaching a completely different world. In this film, the two people become women, and together, they load the film into the camera. In the utter darkness where only the sound of water is heard, images emerge. In that place where everything is inverse, the camera becomes a watering can, a mirror, and a teapot.
Director: Heehyun Choi
Runtime: 22 minutes
1:00 pm: Bambi (35mm) accompanied by Book Signing for "Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong"
In Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong, film scholar and cultural critic Karen Fang illuminates the life of a hidden figure of the twentieth-century whose prolific contributions span popular culture - from Disney to Hallmark to Warner Bros - and shape the American imagination. A journey from an offshore detention center to the worlds of art and Hollywood - where Wong's work informed REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, THE WILD BUNCH, and belatedly, BAMBI. Background Artist is a stirring testament to the transformative power of art and creation as vivid as the enchanting images of the unsung hero. A pinnacle of Disney magic, BAMBI features Tyrus Wong's stunning art direction, rich with expressionistic bursts of color and light, which elevate the tale of the lonely white-tailed fawn from mere children's entertainment to high art.
Director: David Hand
Runtime: 70 minutes
5:00 pm: CineSpace and Closing Night Party
Join us for the 10th Anniversary of CineSpace!
The festival concludes with the 10th annual CineSpace short film competition, presented in collaboration with NASA. This unique competition invites international filmmakers to create films using imagery and footage from NASA's archives. Winners will be announced and awarded a cash prize during the festival's closing night party at The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art on November 17th. Writer and Director Richard Linklater, known for HITMAN and BOYHOOD, selects the winning films alongside a team of specialists from the Houston Cinema Arts Society and NASA.
Doors open at 5:00pm for the CineSpace Festival including interactive exhibits, games, space-themed art, food trucks, beverages, and music.
Film Screening begins at 8:00pm.
Date: November 7 - 17, 2024
Location: Various Venues In Houston, TX
Click here for more information
