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BY JORDAN MAGAZINER STEINFELD, STAFF WRITER | OCTOBER 29, 2018
Jordan Magaziner Steinfeld
Houston Cinema Arts Festival

Houston Cinema Arts Festival (Photo: Houston Cinema Arts Society)

Houston Cinema Arts Festival, a five-day, multi-venue festival offering films and programming, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The festival takes place Nov. 8-12, and there will be a multitude of films and events to enjoy. Tickets are $12 and up, and there are several free events throughout the event. See cinemahtx.org/hcaf(link is external) for the full schedule. Pictured are Susie Criner (third from left) with daughter Annie Eifler (far right) enjoying the unveiling of last year’s festival at the launch party.

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SUSIE CRINER, ANNIE EIFLER
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HOUSTON CINEMA ARTS FESTIVAL, FILM FESTIVALS

Houston Press: Houston Cinema Arts Festival Dives Into Next Gen Filmmaking With VR

Houston Cinema Arts Festival Dives Into Next Gen Filmmaking With VR

SUSIE TOMMANEY | OCTOBER 25, 2018 | 4:00AM
Walk into a room, sit in a chair, don an Oculus headset and bam: you’re in the back seat of a car driven by the parents of a gay man who has died. Part video game, part short film, Queerskins: a love story is a 15-minute virtual reality experience where visitors become collaborators in the storytelling.

Richard Herskowitz, artistic director for Houston Cinema Arts Festival, says the installation is one of the best things in this year’s film fest. “You are equipped to reach in the back seat and pick up things, [there are] scrapbook materials you can read. The chair you sit on evokes the feeling of a moving car. It’s an impressive use of the latest technology and most of all it’s very moving.”

This isn’t the first year that HCAF has experimented with immersive cinema: In 2016 they presented Fulldome Dance and Animation at The Houston Museum of Natural Science Planetarium and in 2012 viewers floated underneath Vanessa Renwick’s Medusa Smack jellyfish screen.

But when it came to virtual reality, Herskowitz always found it frustrating and isolating, in defiance of the festival experience which should be collective. But new technology that sparked sales at Sundance Film Festival this year, a VR theater space called The Box, changed all that by simultaneously running 360 video-sync technology on multiple headsets and allowing everybody in the audience to share the same experience.

Ashes, by director and 360 dance pioneer Jessica Kantor, is a five minute 360 story told through movement about a tragic day at the beach. It screens at Silver Street Studios on November 10.

Ashes, by director and 360 dance pioneer Jessica Kantor, is a five minute 360 story told through movement about a tragic day at the beach. It screens at Silver Street Studios on November 10.
Film still courtesy of Houston Cinema Arts Festival

That shiny new technology is a big component in this year’s HCAF. Organizers have built a 360 Cinema theater space at Silver Street Studios and will show six short films that explore strange new worlds, dance, music and animation. It’s so effective, however, that those susceptible to motion sickness might experience some discomfort.

Art, music and big screen blockbusters also have strong showings at this year’s festival. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is screening a film about comedy writer Steve Young’s passion for forgotten albums in Bathtubs Over Broadway, the Julian Schnabel directed flick about Vincent Van Gogh and starring Willem Dafoe in At Eternity’s Gate, the Natalie Portman-Jude Law vehicle Vox Lux and a behind-the-green-curtain look at art world secrets in The Price of Everything.

Green Book is about a bouncer from the Bronx (Viggo Mortensen) who is hired to drive a world-class African American pianist (Mahershala Ali) on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South during the racially charged '60s.

Green Book is about a bouncer from the Bronx (Viggo Mortensen) who is hired to drive a world-class African American pianist (Mahershala Ali) on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South during the racially charged ’60s.
Film still courtesy of Houston Cinema Arts Festival

Herskowitz also has some Oscar predictions. “Closing night [at MFAH] is Green Book starring Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali. It’s going to be a phenomenon when it’s released. [At the Toronto Film Festival] it won the audience prize over A Star is Born; it was the audience favorite. I sat in an industry screening and people applauded afterwards. That never happens; they’re more jaded,” says Herskowitz. “It was so funny, so moving, so well acted. It knocked everybody out. It will be an Academy contender.”

Academy Award-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuarón drew from childhood memories, including the Corpus Christi massacre of 1971, in creating Roma. It screens November 11 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Academy Award-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuarón drew from childhood memories, including the Corpus Christi massacre of 1971, in creating Roma. It screens November 11 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Film still courtesy of Houston Cinema Arts Festival

Herskowitz also puts writer-director Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma on the short list of Oscar favorites. “I don’t know if a better film is going to come out in the next year. It’s being released by Netflix and they recognize that people need to see this on the big screen, so in several cities with high quality projection they’re allowing it to be shown.”

We did mention music. In addition to a concert at White Oak Music Hall showcasing the soundtracks of Richard Linklater, the HCAF schedule includes Maria by Callas, Das Alte Gesetz (silent film with live musical accompaniment), The Low Turn Row: A Journey in Time (based on photos taken by Wendy Watriss and Frederick Baldwin in Grimes County, where Blues great Mance Lipscomb was born), and A Thousand Thoughts (live documentary with the Kronos Quartet).

The festival has just announced the 15 finalists for CineSpace 2018, narrowed down from more than 250 submissions of films that utilize NASA-captured imagery. Directors competing for the $26,000 in total prize money are Orest Smylanets, Edgar Salas, Elena Franco, Elisabeth McKeon, Graham Uhelski, Sarah Hickey, Kevin Hughes, Stela Subashi, Charles Baldwin, Neta Ben Ezra, Kamil Dymek, Horacio Rodriguez, Susan Spano, Aidan Brezonick, Jan Turek, Prokop Jelinek and Karsten Pruehl. Winners will be selected by Academy Award-nominated director Richard Linklater and announced during the November 10 screening.

Houston Cinema Arts Festival is scheduled for November 8-12 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Rice Media Center, White Oak Music Hall, Brasil, Silver Street Studios, Poitín, Moody Center for the Arts, Asia Society Texas Center and Aurora Picture Show, cinemahtx.org, free to $25. 

Susie Tommaney is a contributing writer who enjoys covering the lively arts and culture scene in Houston and surrounding areas, connecting creative makers with the Houston Press readers to make every week a great one.

Houston Chronicle: HCAF 2018

Houston Cinema Arts Festival announces lineup for its 10th edition

Photo of Cary Darling
Cary Darling 
1of 10(L to R) Marco Graf as Pepe, Daniela Demesa as Sofi, Yalitza Aparicio as Cleo, Marina De Tavira as Sofia, Diego Cortina Autrey as Toño, Carlos Peralta Jacobson as Paco in Roma, written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón.Photo: Carlos Somante
2of 10Viola Davis stars in Steve McQueen’s ‘Widows.’Photo: Merrick Morton
3of 10Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali in ‘Green Book’Photo: Patti Perret

The tenth anniversary of the Houston Cinema Arts Festival flaunts its multimedia ambitions, as well as makes a nod to its past, when it unspools Nov. 8-12 with crossover programming from the worlds of film, music, books and virtual reality.

Such hotly anticipated major releases as Steve McQueen’s “Widows” starring Viola Davis; Peter Farrelly’s “Green Book” with Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen; Brady Corbet’s “Vox Lux” starring Natalie Portman and Jude Law; Alfonso Cuarón’s much lauded “Roma” ;and the documentary about opera star Maria Callas, “Maria by Callas,” will be making their Houston-area debuts, it was announced Monday.

Another big film on a schedule with approximately 70 features, documentaries and shorts is “At Eternity’s Gate,” filmmaker/painter Julian Schnabel’s movie about the last days of Vincent van Gogh starring Willem Dafoe, Oscar Isaac, Mads Mikkelsen and Rupert Friend. The motion picture picked up two awards at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

But perhaps the quirkiest highlight of the festival features Houston-born director Richard Linklater hosting “A Dazed and Confused Cinema Arts Celebration: The Music of Richard Linklater.” He will be in conversation with Houston musician Bun B about the soundtracks for his Texas-set films “Dazed and Confused” and “Everybody Wants Some” and then showing clips from the movies. Houston band Handsomebeast will be on hand covering songs from the soundtracks.

Houston Cinema Arts Festival

Nov. 8-12

The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Rice Media Center, Aurora Picture Show, White Oak Music Hall, Sawyer Yards, Moody Center, The Asia Society and Cafe Brasil

$12 for most screenings

www.cinemahtx.org.

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Already announced in August were two performances by San Francisco’s contemporary classical Kronos Quartet accompanying Sam Green’s documentary about the group, “A Thousand Thoughts.”

Opening night will showcase two documentaries: “Bathtubs Over Broadway,” director Dava Whisenant’s chronicle of comedy writer Steve Young’s obsession with Broadway-style recordings about such brands as McDonald’s and Xerox; and “Citizen Blue,” a look at the life of Oscar-nominated and Cannes award-winning Houston filmmaker James Blue, the man who founded Rice Media Center at Rice University and the Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP).

Closing night belongs to director Alex Cox (“Repo Man,” “Sid and Nancy”) who will be presenting a screening of Dennis Hopper’s controversial 1971 film “The Last Movie” in a newly restored 4K edition. (The next night, after the festival ends, Cox will be showing the film that put the nail in the coffin of his Hollywood career, “Walker” starring Ed Harris, at Rice Cinema.)

Retrospective feel

Outgoing artistic director Richard Herskowitz, for whom this will be his last Cinema Arts Festival as he wants to concentrate on his other gig as the artistic and executive director of the Ashland Independent Film Festival in Oregon, says he wanted to offer the feel of a retrospective of the festival’s first decade without showing films that have been at the festival in the past.

“We were able to do that by bringing back many of the most memorable guests of the past 10 years and have them present new work,” he says by phone, pointing to the likes of Sam Green whose live documentary “Utopia in Four Movements” was programmed nine years ago. “He has done several of these live documentaries but his latest one is such a leap for him. I saw it at Sundance in January and it was far and away my favorite event there.”

Similarly, Linklater brought his film “Me and Orson Welles” to Cinema Arts in 2009 and is returning this year. “He became a real advocate for the festival. He joined our honorary board. He came back every couple of years. He helped us get Ethan Hawke to come,” Herskowitz says. “Now, since the 10th anniversary of the festival is coinciding with the 25th anniversary of ‘Dazed and Confused,’ we’ve come up with the best showcase yet to honor Rick’s work.”

Bun B, also an honorary board member, has also been involved with past festivals, from interviewing “Blue Velvet” cinematographer Frederick Elmes in 2016 to helping stage last year’s “Singin’ in the Rain” celebration that meshed live performance with the classic film that took on added relevance in a post-Harvey Houston.

“To discover that in addition to being a great musician he’s a serious cinephile and when he had the opportunity to interview the cinematographer of “Blue Velvet,” he was beside himself. So, he too is a big part of our history over the last decade,” Herskowitz said.

One of the more intriguingly Texas-centric events on the schedule is “The Low Turn Row: A Journey in Time,” a work from FotoFest International co-founders Frederick Baldwin and Wendy Watriss that spans film, music, video, photography, and music. The project focuses on Grimes County, west of Huntsville, where Baldwin and Watriss lived for two years listening to, documenting and recording the stories of those who live there. Blues vocalist Corey Harris will sing the songs of Grimes County blues singer Mance Lipscomb, who died in 1976.

Three notable documentary screenings are: “This Changes Everything,” Tom Donohue’s exceedingly timely documentary about Hollywood’s treatment of women through the years and features the voices of some of the leading actresses of our era including Cate Blanchett, Jessica Chastain, Tiffany Haddish and Natalie Portman; “The Price of Everything,” a behind-the-scenes look at the world of art and art collecting featuring such artists Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, which will be followed by a discussion with Houston art professionals; and “Jaddoland,” which explores identity and family with a mother and daughter of Iraqi descent in Lubbock.

Also on tap is a showing of a restored version of “The Ancient Law,” the 1923 film that is a prime example of Jewish filmmaking in Germany, with musical accompaniment from Klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals and pianist Donald Sosin as well as a meshing live music and film when musician Walt McClements (from the bands Hooray for the Riff Raff and Lonesome Leash) teams with experimental filmmakers Vanessa Renwick and Brent Green.

“This realizes what I’ve been waiting for with virtual reality, that it can be experienced theatrically and not just in isolation,” he says. “We’re reacting to what film artists are excited by. I do feel like being an arts oriented festival, it’s been our obligation to try to look for the cutting edge in cinematic experimentation.”

On the literary side, novelist Jonathan Lethem (“The Fortress of Solitude”) is pairing with filmmaker Fred Barney Taylor for a showing of “Lethem,” a look at the life of the author and those who have impacted him. Separately, Lethem will also be appearing at a reading of his new book, “The Feral Detective,” at an InPrint event at University of Houston’s Cullen Performance Hall.

And CineSpace, the short film competition held in conjunction with NASA, returns with Linklater as judge.

Cinema Arts Festival venues include the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Rice Media Center, Aurora Picture Show, White Oak Music Hall, Sawyer Yards, Moody Center, The Asia Society and Cafe Brasil.

General admission is $12 for most screenings, though some events are more. All-access passes are $99.

For more information, tickets and the full schedule, go to www.cinemahtx.org.

cary.darling@chron.com

HCAF at 10: Arts & Culture

Houston can be funny sometimes. Millions of people live here, but you rarely seem to meet people from here. This seems to be especially true in the landscape of Houston’s art world, which is often dotted by women and men who have come from elsewhere and set their tents—a city marked by outsiders.

Consider the Houston Cinema Arts Festival (HCAF), this year celebrating its tenth anniversary, and Richard Herskowitz, its artistic director. Most of the time, he lives in Oregon, but for about two months each year, he’s here in Houston, programming the festival, taking on the task of working with Houston’s myriad arts organizations—the Museum of Fine Arts, Inprint, Asia Society Texas Center, Project Row Houses (to name just a handful of the more ubiquitous ones)—to assemble a five-day event that spans the city. The festival’s mission? To highlight film that addresses, in one way or another, the creative act.

Jaddoland screens on Nov. 11 at 7pm at Rice Media Center with Nadia Shihab and Lahib Jaddo in attendance.

But after ten years, Herskowitz is saying goodbye to Houston and the festival. “Ten,” he tells me over the phone one afternoon, “is a nice number to go out on.”

One of the notable features of HCAF is the way it ties together different venues, different organizations, and different art forms from merely film; the festival becomes, in a way, a guided tour through Houston.

This year, one of the opening night films is a musical documentary, Bathtubs Over Broadway, which will be accompanied by record collectors Steve Young and Don Bolles, who are featured in the film. Bolles, a founder of the venerable Los Angeles punk band The Germs, will perform a DJ set at the MFAH Cullinan Hall following the film.

“We have had a wide range of musical performances at our opening nights this past decade, from violinist Philippe Quint to country musician Dale Watson. This year, Bolles’ eccentric DJ’ing will kick off [a festival] that is as much a music festival as a film festival.”

An upcoming HCAF event uses Asia Society Texas Center for A Thousand Thoughts, a “live documentary” that features Sam Green and a performance from the legendary Kronos Quartet. Another 2018 festival event will highlight the 25th anniversary of Dazed and Confused, which will involve dancers interpreting the classic film’s soundtrack before its director, Richard Linklater, is interviewed by Bun B.

Bathtubs over Broadway opens the Houston Cinema Arts Festival on Nov. 8 at the MFAH, with director Dava Whisenant and Steve Young in attendance. Photo courtesy of HCAF.

Also playing this year: Citizen Blue: The Life and Work of a Great American Filmmaker. The subject of the film is James Blue, a legendary Houston figure and, according to Herskowitz, “a huge influence on independent filmmaking and film exhibition in Houston, including our festival.” Blue, who died in 1980, founded the Rice Media Center, so where better to hold this opening night celebration than at the venue he created?

 “This festival has a retrospective quality to it,” Herskowitz tells me, “with its programs echoing programs from the past ten years. In many cases, major guests are returning, not to show older work but to show new work.”

Something that particularly excites him from past years is the festival’s dabbling in virtual reality film, “but what we’re doing this year that really makes it a culmination is we’re creating a theater [at Sawyer Yards] in which 30 people at a time see the same virtual reality program.” Part of his problem with virtual reality cinema up to this point is that “it’s been so isolating, so this is a major step. Now we can give people a collective experience.”

Houston hip-hop legend Bun B will interview Richard Linklater as part of A Dazed and Confused Cinema Arts Celebration:The Soundtracks of Richard Linklater on Nov. 9 at White Oak Music Hall Pictured: Bun B. Photo by Marco Torres.

It’s an exciting new step, and one that feels a little bittersweet, given that Herskowitz will not see the next version, whatever it is, at the festival. Nevertheless, he still thinks of Houston as a “second home,” and it seems as though one of the things he’ll miss most is the sense of collaboration, no easy task in a city like Houston, where many organizations are vying for the same pool of funds, and the natural sprawl fights with bare-knuckles, citywide efforts at community building. People who don’t know Houston may not understand just how difficult it is to draw multiple organizations together, united in a central mission.

“Honestly, at the beginning, I think there may have been wariness [about collaboration],” Herskowitz says, “maybe because funds are scarce, but very quickly, within a couple years, all these organizations realized that this was beneficial to everyone and brought resources to the table. The people we’ve been able to bring to Aurora Picture Show or to the Menil: it helps showcase those partners and it’s really about calling attention to the larger community.”

He pauses and then echoes a sentiment I seem to be hearing about Houston, this strange swamp city, more and more often: “I was blown away when I saw how much was going on in Houston that I hadn’t been aware of. Hopefully that continues to grow.”

—BEN RYBECK

Benjamin Rybeck
BENJAMIN RYBECK

Benjamin Rybeck is the author of The Sadness and the general manager of Brazos Bookstore.

Regal Mag: HCAF Celebrates 10th Anniversary

Houston Cinema Arts Festival Celebrates 10th Anniversary
by Michael Allen

See article online.

Actress Viola Davis stars in the highly anticipated thriller, “Widows” (Photo courtesy of On the Mark Communications).

2018 Houston Cinema Arts Festival: 10th Anniversary Celebration

From Nov. 8-12, the 2018 Houston Cinema Arts Festival (HCAF) will make the “Bayou City” look like Cannes, Sundance and Toronto as some of the most critically acclaimed films hit the big screen throughout the city.

HCAF will celebrate its 10th anniversary with screenings and events taking place at venues such as Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Rice Cinema, White Oak Music Hall, Café Brasil and other venues throughout the Greater Houston area.

The highly anticipated thriller “Widows” will premiere at HCAF.

“Widows” stars Academy Award winner Viola Davis under the direction of Steve McQueen, the director of the Academy Award winning film, “12 Years a Slave.”

The suspenseful “Widows” depicts four women in modern day Chicago who all deal with the debt left behind by their deceased husbands.

Not knowing how to come up with the money to pay off the debt, the four women take matters into their own hands/trigger fingers.

“Widows” also stars Cynthia Erivo (“Bad Times at the El Royale”), Michelle Rodriguez (“Furious 7”) and Elizabeth Debicki (“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”).

The film “Widows” will screen at 7 P.M. on Nov. 9 at Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

On Nov. 12 at 7 P.M., “Green Book” will screen, also at the Museum of Fine Arts.

In “Green Book,” an Italian-American bouncer (Viggio Mortenson) takes a job as the driver for an African-American classical pianist (Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight”).

The drama behind “Green Book” does not rest with the jobs of the two men.

The drama stems from the date and the region of the job.

The White driver has to chauffer the African-American pianist on his tour, which takes him from Manhattan, N.Y. to the Deep South during the turbulent and tumultuous 1960s.

The actual green book consists of establishments, areas and businesses friendly to Black patrons and people.

During the trip, the tandem face racism, danger and unexpectedly great humor and humanity.

“Green Book” premiered for the world at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The highly anticipated movie is directed by filmmaker, Peter Farrelly (“Dumb and Dumber”).

Consistent with the #MeToo movement sweeping Hollywood, corporate America and politics, HCAF will screen the film “This Changes Everything” on Nov. 10 at 6 P.M.

“This Changes Everything” explores the systemic sexism that exists in the entertainment industry through the voices and stories of such talented entertainers as Geena Davis, Meryl Streep, Sandra Oh, Jessica Chastain, Natalie Portman and many others.

Davis executive produced the timely film.

On Nov. 10 at 3:15 P.M. at the Rice Media Center, HCAF will screen the documentary “Owned: A Tale of Two Americas,” which depicts the racism and segregation within the United States housing economy.

“Owned: A Tale of Two Americas” is directed by Giorgio Angelini, a student in the Masters of Architecture program at Rice University during the 2008 real estate collapse.

It was during the time in 2008 when Angelini began laying the foundation for his documentary, “Owned: A Tale of Two Americas.”

On Nov. 8, HCAF will screen the documentary, “Citizen Blue,” which tells the story of James Blue, regarded as one of the most influential voices in social activism filmmaking.

Two of Blue’s respected films include, “A Few Notes on Our Food Program” (1968) and “The March” (1964), which chronicled the March on Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.

“Citizen Blue” will screen at Rice Media Center at 8:00 P.M.

In 2017, rapper Bun B from the legendary group UGK participated in the musical tribute “Singin’ in the Rain” about Houston’s resilience following the destruction and devastation of Hurricane Harvey.

For the 10th anniversary of HCAF, the festival will present “A Dazed and Confused Cinema Arts Celebration: The Music of Richard Linklater.”

A Houston native, Linklater is the director behind the cult stoner classic, “Dazed and Confused.”

Rapper Bun B returns, this time to interview Academy Award nominated filmmaker Richard Linklater about the soundtrack selections in two of his films, “Dazed and Confused” (on its 25th anniversary) and its sequel, “Everybody Wants Some!!”

Linklater is a member of the Houston Cinema Arts Festival’s board.

The filmmaker was also the original HCAF opening night guest back in 2009.

The rapper born Bernard Freeman is also a longtime member of the HCAF board.

Following Bun B and Linklater’s discussion, Houston-based musicians Handsomebeast will perform renditions of songs from “Dazed and Confused” and “Everybody Wants Some!!”

Bun B will follow Handsomebeast with a rendition of the first hit rap song, “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang,” which appears in the movie, “Everybody Wants Some!!”

The rapper originally from Port Arthur, Texas (and the unofficial mayor of Houston) will then perform tracks from his newest album, “Return of the Trill.”

The evening of performances will conclude with dance music songs by DJ Ramalama (Matt Johns).

Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is a 501( c ) 3 nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting innovative films, media installations, and performances that celebrate the artistic process and enrich Houston’s culture and urban vitality.

Created in 2008 with the support of former Houston Mayor Bill White and philanthropist Franci Neely, it organizes and hosts the annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival, a groundbreaking and innovative festival featuring films and new media by and about artists in the visual, performing and literary arts.

The Festival celebrates the diversity of the arts in Houston and elevates the city’s film and arts scene.

Houston Cinema Arts Society sponsors include premiere sponsor Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, signature sponsors Houston First Corporation, METRO, and Levantine Films, and presenting sponsor Nabors Industries.

HCAS is also supported by the Franci Neely Foundation, The Petrello Family Foundation, Amegy Bank, Kinder Foundation, Brown Foundation, Silver Eagle; Texas Film Commission; Houston Film Commission; Texas Commission for the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; and Houston Arts Alliance.

The 2018 Houston Cinema Arts Festival will take place from Nov. 8-12.

*All times listed in the article above reflect Central Standard Time.
This article was published on Friday 19 October, 2018.

 

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