Press Releases

Houston Cinema Arts Society Celebrates The Ensemble Theatre With Free Virtual Program for Women’s History Month

Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is partnering with The Ensemble Theatre to present Celebrating 45 Years of The Ensemble Theatre: A Women’s History Month Special, a free virtual program on Sunday, March 28th at 6pm CST with a live panel discussion, stage readings, and a Q&A. The program is free with donations encouraged.
The birth of a new Black theatre movement came out of the Civil Rights/Black Power activism of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, as well as intersectional feminism. Leading figures, institutions and events of a movement that transformed the American stage first and foremost include George Hawkins who founded The Ensemble Theatre in 1976 in Houston, Texas. His legacy is now carried forth by Eileen J. Morris, Ensemble’s Artistic Director, who collaborated and worked closely with Hawkins before his death in 1990, and the entire Ensemble team. The Ensemble is one of the few professional theatres in the region dedicated to the production of works portraying the African American experience, the oldest and largest professional African American theatre in the Southwest, and holds the distinction of being one of the nation’s largest African American theatres owning and operating its facility and producing in-house.

This multimedia virtual tribute will celebrate the legacy of The Ensemble, as well as how much this legacy intersects with our current era of racial and post Me Too reckoning, as well as how Black theatre in America has always reflected and intersected with social history and justice. In honor of Women’s History Month readings of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Nambi Kelley’s Dead of Night…The Execution of… monologue from the Hands Up project will be part of the celebration, as well as rare ephemera and memorabilia from Ensemble’s storied history and a live panel discussion with an audience Q&A.

Readings include: Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun with Bebe Wilson playing Mama, Aisha Ussery playing Ruth, and Steven Scot playing Walter Lee, Will Power’s Fetch Clay, Make Man with Derrick Brent playing Muhammed Ali and Jason E. Carmichael playing Stephin’ Fetchit, amd Nambi Kelly’s Dead of Night… The Execution of… From Hands Up with Bianca Laverne Jones reading the monologue. The panel discussion will include Eileen J. Morris, Woodie King, Jr., Nambi Kelley, and Linda Lorrell, moderated by Jessica Green.

“We at HCAS are so honored to be able to collaborate with Houston’s venerable Ensemble Theatre in the calendar year of their 45th anniversary,” says HCAS Artistic Director Jessica Green. “The Ensemble, one of the largest Black owned, operated and led theatres in the US, is a beacon and an emblem of what is possible, and in occupying the space it does — the space of possibilities — it reflects back the promise of African American theatre. It is such a gift at this inflection point in American history to be in conversation with Ensemble’s history and its incredible Artistic Director Eileen Morris, as well as leaders of the Black Theatre Movement Woody King Jr and Nambi Kelley.”

Woodie King Jr. founded the New Federal Theatre (NFT) in 1970 in New York City. Several early successes brought NFT to national prominence: Black Girl by J.e. Franklin, won a Drama Desk Award, The Taking of Miss Janie by Ed Bullins moved from NFT to Lincoln Center, and won the Drama Critics Circle Award; For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange performed on Broadway for 10 months and was nominated for the Tony Award before embarking on a three-year national tour. Linda Lorelle is an Emmy and Gracie award-winning broadcast journalist who anchored the evening news on Houston’s NBC affiliate, KPRC-TV for more than 16 years and is now CEO and Executive Producer of Lorelle Media, her multimedia production and communications consulting firm, based in Houston. Nambi Kelley is an award winning actress/playwright, who has performed across the country, including many shows at the Goodman Theatre & Steppenwolf Theatre, and across TV. Nambi is a writer on Showtime’s The Chi, and is in development with several other film and TV projects. Eileen J. Morris, is a director, actress, educator, and the current Artistic Director of The Ensemble Theatre. She worked closely with the founder of The Ensemble Theatre, George W. Hawkins, from 1982 until his death in 1990.

With many thanks this project is funded in part by the City of Houston, City Initiative Grant through the Houston Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs and Houston Arts Alliance.

For more information and to reserve free tickets, visit cinemahtx.org.

About The Ensemble Theatre
The Ensemble Theatre was founded in 1976 by the late George Hawkins to preserve African American artistic expression and enlighten, entertain and enrich a diverse community. Decades later, the theatre has evolved from a touring company operating from the trunk of Mr. Hawkins’ car to being one of Houston’s finest historical cultural institutions. The Ensemble is one of the only professional theatres in the region dedicated to the production of works portraying the African American experience, the oldest and largest professional African American theatre in the Southwest, and holds the distinction of being one of the nation’s largest African American theatres owning and operating its facility and producing in-house. The Ensemble Theatre has fulfilled and surpassed the vision of its founder, and continues to expand and create innovative programs to bring African American theatre to a myriad of audiences.

The programs and operations of The Ensemble Theatre benefit a multicultural audience that is diverse in age, income, ethnicity, and culture. Its core audience is African American (90%). The Ensemble produces a Mainstage Season of six contemporary and classical works devoted to the portrayal of the African American experience by local and national playwrights and artists. The Ensemble’s Performing Arts Education program provides educational workshops, artist-in-residence experiences, and live performances for students both off-site and at the theatre, and the Young Performers Program offers intensive spring and summer training for youth ages 6 to 17 encompassing instruction in all disciplines of the theatre arts. Through its varied programs, The Ensemble reaches over 65,000 people annually.

ABOUT HOUSTON CINEMA ARTS SOCIETY (HCAS)
Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting unique and innovative film programs, multimedia installations and performances, and educational opportunities to engage, enrich, and empower Houston’s diverse communities and cultures. HCAS flagship programs include the Houston Cinema Arts Festival held annually in November, the Cinespace short film competition (a collaboration with NASA challenging filmmakers to create films from the NASA archives), Borders | No Borders (a short film competition for filmmakers with meaningful ties to Texas, the states it borders, and Mexico), and the Black Media Story Summit (a collaboration with Black Public Media, the Austin Film Society, and the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation). HCAS is dedicated to serving Houston filmmakers and film lovers and engaging in meaningful partnerships with creative individuals and organizations at the intersection of cinema with the visual arts, music, theatre, literature, dance, culture, science, and the humanities. HCAS is generously supported by HEB, National Endowment for the Arts, Brown Foundation, Kinder Foundation, Houston First Corporation, Franci Neely Foundation, Petrello Family Foundation, Cabrina & Steven Owsley, Carrin Patman & Jim Derrick, Catherine Asher Morgan, Sara and Bill Morgan, Louisa Stude Sarofim, Nina & Michael Zilkha, Mark Wawro, Amegy Bank, Texas Film Commission, Houston Film Commission, Texas Commission for the Arts, Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, Six Foot, and Houston Arts Alliance. The 2020 Houston Cinema Arts Festival took place November 12-22 at Drive-Ins around Houston and on the virtual Eventive platform.

 

7th Annual CineSpace Short Film Competition Now Accepting Submissions

HOUSTON, TX – NASA and the Houston Cinema Arts Society ( HCAS) open submissions for the 2021 CineSpace Short Film Competition on March 1 kicking off the seventh year of the film competition. The deadline for submissions closes July 14, 2021 at noon EST.

The competition fosters creativity at the intersection of art and science by inviting filmmakers around the world to create short films inspired by and incorporating NASA archival footage and imagery.  Submissions featuring NASA footage from 60 years of space exploration will be judged on creativity, innovation and attention to detail. As in previous years, filmmakers will compete for $26,000 in cash prizes with awards going to the top three overall winners and winners of two special categories: Best Educational Film on Space and Science and Film That Best Depicts Unity and Inclusion in Science.

Filmmakers of all experience levels from around the world are welcome to submit their films for consideration. The competition is inclusive of all genres including narrative, documentary, comedy, drama, animation, experimental, and others, and films will be submitted to the content creation platform Tongal. Film entries must be 10 minutes or less and consist of at least 10 percent publicly available NASA archival content. Finalists are selected from the submissions by a joint NASA-HCAS screening committee, and first, second, and third place prizes are awarded by Academy Award ® nominee Richard Linklater.

Finalists will be announced alongside the lineup of the 2021 Houston Cinema Arts Festival in October 2021. Winners will be announced and awarded their prizes at the 13th Annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival taking place November 11 – 15, 2021.  Finalists and winners may be screened at other film festivals across the country, on NASA TV, or even onboard the ISS.

Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting unique and innovative film programs, multimedia installations and performances, and educational opportunities to engage, enrich, and empower Houston’s diverse communities and cultures.

For more information on CineSpace, competition guidelines and the submission process and to view past winners and finalists, visit: http://www.cinespace.org

Find NASA video and imagery at: http://www.nasa.gov/content/download-nasa-videos-for-cinespace

Learn about NASA’s innovative and collaborative efforts at: https://www.nasa.gov/offices/COECI/index.html

Look for more about the Houston Cinema Arts Society at: cinemahtx.org

2021 Sundance Film Festival and Houston Cinema Arts Society Reveal Program Selections Debuting in Houston

Houston, TX — The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced last month the new independent work selected for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, January 28-February 3, 2021. The Festival will take place digitally via a feature-rich, Sundance-built online platform and in-person screenings across the country on Satellite Screens including in Houston (public health permitting). Online, Festival attendees can gather in virtual waiting rooms, participate in live Q&A’s, and congregate in new environments to interact in a range of ways, both new and familiar. The Institute shared details of how the Festival will meet audiences on the online platform and Satellite Screens in December. 


Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is proud to partner with the Festival to bring selections of the program to Houston at Moonstruck Drive-In and The DeLuxe Theater. Each film will be preceded by an HCAS curated pre-show reel. More announcements will follow next week.


The film selections playing in Houston are: 

CODA / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Siân Heder, Producers: Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi, Patrick Wachsberger) — As a CODA – Child of Deaf Adults – Ruby is the only hearing person in her deaf family. When the family’s fishing business is threatened, Ruby finds herself torn between pursuing her love of music and her fear of abandoning her parents. Cast: Emilia Jones, Eugenio Derbez, Troy Kotsur, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Daniel Durant, and Marlee Matlin. World Premiere. Playing Thursday, January 28 at 7:30PM at Moonstruck Drive-In.

I Was a Simple Man / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Christopher Makoto Yogi, Producers: Sarah S. Kim, Christopher Makoto Yogi, Matthew Petock, Yamato Cibulka) — As a family in Hawai’i faces the imminent death of their eldest, the ghosts of the past haunt the countryside. Cast: Steve Iwamoto, Constance Wu, Kanoa Goo, Chanel Akiko Hirai, Tim Chiou, Boonyanudh Jiyarom. World Premiere. Playing Friday, January 29 at 7:30PM at Moonstruck Drive-In.

Passing / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Rebecca Hall, Producers: Forest Whitaker, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Margot Hand, Rebecca Hall) — Two African-American women who can “pass” as white choose to live on opposite sides of the color line in 1929 New York in an exploration of racial and gender identity, performance, obsession and repression. Based on the novella by Nella Larsen. Cast: Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga, André Holland, Alexander Skarsgård, Bill Camp. World Premiere. Playing Saturday, January 30 at 7:30PM at Moonstruck Drive-In.

“We are so excited about our Sundance Satellite line-up at the fabulous Moonstruck Drive-In and eager to share some of the most intriguing, gorgeous, and groundbreaking filmmaking on the planet with Houston’s discerning film going audience,” says HCAS Artistic Director Jessica Green. “Siân Heder’s Coda, Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was a Simple Man, and Rebecca Hall’s Passing represent the new voices, excellence, and diversity of world-class independent filmmaking in 2021. All three set a fresh gaze on underrepresented, unique, yet universally felt experiences and scopes. We are really proud, at Houston Cinema Arts Society, to be tasked with shepherding this experience on behalf of Sundance for Houston.“ 

Tickets for in-person screenings, along with the local screening schedule, will be available beginning January 7, 2021. You can learn more about the films selected for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and see the online schedule on the Festival’s film program guide at festival.sundance.org.  

Houston Cinema Arts Society will be revealing additional local programming including talks and events in mid-January for the Beyond Film section. For more information, please see at Festival.Sundance.org and cinemahtx.org.

ABOUT HOUSTON CINEMA ARTS SOCIETY (HCAS)

Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting unique and innovative film programs, multimedia installations and performances, and educational opportunities to engage, enrich, and empower Houston’s diverse communities and cultures.  HCAS flagship programs include the Houston Cinema Arts Festival held annually in November, the Cinespace short film competition (a collaboration with NASA challenging filmmakers to create films from the NASA archives), Borders | No Borders (a short film competition for filmmakers with meaningful ties to Texas, the states it borders, and Mexico), and the Black Media Story Summit (a collaboration with Black Public Media, the Austin Film Society, and the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation). HCAS is dedicated to serving Houston filmmakers and film lovers and engaging in meaningful partnerships with creative individuals and organizations at the intersection of cinema with the visual arts, music, theatre, literature, dance, culture, science, and the humanities.  HCAS is generously supported by HEB, National Endowment for the Arts, Brown Foundation, Kinder Foundation, Houston First Corporation, Franci Neely Foundation, Petrello Family Foundation, Cabrina & Steven Owsley, Carrin Patman & Jim Derrick, Catherine Asher Morgan, Sara and Bill Morgan, Louisa Stude Sarofim, Nina & Michael Zilkha, Mark Wawro, Amegy Bank, Texas Film Commission, Houston Film Commission, Texas Commission for the Arts, Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, Six Foot, and Houston Arts Alliance. The 2020 Houston Cinema Arts Festival took place November 12-22 at Drive-Ins around Houston and on the virtual Eventive platform.

Houston Cinema Arts Society Hosts Sundance Satellite Film Festival in Houston

 December 9, 2020                                                  

HOUSTON — Houston Cinema Arts Society is partnering with Sundance Film Festival to host a Sundance Satellite Film Festival in Houston. Expanding beyond its Utah home, the Festival has created a network of partnerships to bring feature films and customized local programming — talks, events, artist meet-ups — to communities across the country. In addition to these Satellite Screen partnerships, the Institute will program screenings at The Ray in Park City and the Rose Bowl and Mission Tiki Drive-Ins in Los Angeles, health and safety guidelines permitting, as well as on the Sundance Film Festival virtual platform. Each Satellite Screen will create and host their own events, sharing local cultural conversations with broader Festival audiences, with most also screening selections from the 2021 program.

“These partners are the backbone of independent artistic communities across the country, where filmmakers are born and cinephiles are developed,” said Sundance Film Festival Director Tabitha Jackson. “We’re entering these partnerships because a healthy ecosystem for artists and audiences requires that independent cinemas across the country survive and thrive.”

Houston Cinema Arts Society will host drive-in screenings at downtown Houston’s beautiful Moonstruck Drive-In, as well as the Drive-In at the historic DeLuxe Theater, one of the jewels of the 5th Ward. HCAS will also be presenting “Beyond Film” virtual programming, companion programming to the “Sundance Select” films. Programming details to be announced. Tickets will go on sale on January 7th at cinemahtx.org.

 

*We at HCAS are so excited to be partnering with the Sundance Film Festival on presenting a Sundance Satellite Film Festival in Houston.” HCAS Artistic Director Jessica Green said. “This is a rare opportunity to bring together a world renowned film festival, featuring the best in global independent film, with Houston, the United States’ most emergent global and diverse city. We are excited to share some of the best of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival in real time, with Houstonians, along with “Beyond Film” virtual programming featuring, and in partnership with local filmmakers, artists and organizations.”

HCAS Artistic Director Jessica Green and festival artists are available for interviews upon requests. Film screeners available upon request.

Press Contact:

Michael Robinson

Marketing and Communications Manager

713.429.0420

michael@cinemahtx.org

 

ABOUT HOUSTON CINEMA ARTS SOCIETY (HCAS)

Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting unique and innovative film programs, multimedia installations and performances, and educational opportunities to engage, enrich, and empower Houston’s diverse communities and cultures.  HCAS flagship programs include the Houston Cinema Arts Festival held annually in November, the Cinespace short film competition (a collaboration with NASA challenging filmmakers to create films from the NASA archives), Borders | No Borders, a short film competition (for residents of, and filmmakers with significant ties to Texas, the states it borders, and Mexico), and the Black Media Story Summit (a collaboration with Black Public Media, the Austin Film Society, and the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation). HCAS is dedicated to serving Houston filmmakers and film lovers and engaging in meaningful partnerships with creative individuals and organizations at the intersection of cinema with the visual arts, music, theatre, literature, dance, culture, science, and the humanities.  HCAS is generously supported by HEB, Houston First Corporation, Levantine Films, Franci Neely Foundation, Petrello Family Foundation, Cabrina & Steven Owsley, Carrin Patman & Jim Derrick, Catherine Asher Morgan, Sara and Bill Morgan, Louisa Stude Sarofim, Nina & Michael Zilkha, Mark Wawro, Amegy Bank, Kinder Foundation, Brown Foundation, Texas Film Commission, Houston Film Commission, Texas Commission for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, and Houston Arts Alliance. The 2020 Houston Cinema Arts Festival took place November 12-22,  at Drive-Ins around Houston and on the virtual Eventive platform.

HOUSTON CINEMA ARTS SOCIETY RECEIVES HUMANITIES TEXAS RELIEF GRANT

Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is the recipient of a Humanities Texas Relief Grant.

HCAS is dedicated to presenting innovative films, media installations, multimedia performances, and educational initiatives that celebrate the artistic process and enrich Houston’s culture and urban vitality. Since the onset of the pandemic, HCAS has pivoted to virtual programming.
Relief Grant funds provided essential early funding to build out virtual platforms and provide scholars, activists, filmmakers, and artists with honorariums for participating in virtual discussions.

This summer, Humanities Texas awarded over $1.1 million to 198 Texas nonprofits that suffered losses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recipients include museums, libraries, preservation organizations and heritage and cultural centers, among many others.

These organizations offer historical and cultural programs that have significant impact within their communities. Humanities Texas aims to help these organizations remain vital in this difficult time.

“We are fortunate to have the opportunity to provide critical support to so many organizations across the state,” said Humanities Texas Executive Director Eric Lupfer. “Looking ahead, we will continue to seek ways to assist Texas cultural and educational institutions in surviving this crisis.”

“The Relief Grant allowed HCAS to move confidently and quickly to a virtual platform and provide much needed honorariums to program participants. HCAS was able to continue to engage audiences from home in a meaningful and interactive way,” said Laurence Unger, Executive Director of HCAS.

Funding for these grants has been provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act economic stabilization plan. n

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Humanities Texas, based in Austin, Texas, is the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its mission is to advance education through programs that improve the quality of classroom teaching, support libraries and museums and create opportunities for lifelong learning for all Texans.

HCAS hosts a special preview screening of the Sundance Winning Documentary Boys State

HCAS is hosting a free virtual preview screening of the 2019 Sundance award-winning documentary Boys State for HCAS members and HCAF 2019 festival ticket purchasers, followed by a Q&A with directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss and film subjects Houstonian Steven Garza and San Antonian Ben Feinstein, moderated by HCAS’s Michael Robinson. The film is courtesy of Apple Original Films and A24. Boys State will be released on Apple TV+ on Friday, August 14th.   


Registration ends August 5th at 10:00am CST. Members can reserve tickets at the link below. HCAF 2019 ticket purchasers can email admin @ cinemahtx.org with their name and the film they watched at the festival and will be added to the list. Registrations after 10am CST will not be included. 


Boys State follows the lives of teenage boys participating in Boys State, a program where selected students from all around the nation build a representative government. They involve themselves in alliances, political parties, campaigns, mock elections and legislatures as they learn how the political process works. One of the films subjects, Steven Garza, a student from Mayde Creek High School in Katy, Texas, displays perseverance and heroism in sticking to his progressive beliefs running for a governor position even though the conclave was dominated by his white, conservative peers.


For more information, visit: https://hcas.eventive.org/schedule/5f22ee3385a26f00360d69c7

Houston Cinema Arts Society Launches New Short Film Competition “Borders | No Borders”

The Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is launching a new regional short film competition.  Borders | No Borders is open to short narrative and documentary films with strong ties to Texas, the states bordering Texas, and Mexico. The competition will open on June 11th and close on August 14th 2020. Finalist films will be announced with the Houston Cinema Arts Festival 2020 lineup in mid-October and will be screened at the festival.


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. As we cling to home these days, HCAS is taking this opportunity to celebrate the complexity of Houston and its neighboring communities, all of which contribute to H-Town’s je ne sais quoi.


Borders | No Borders invites residents of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Mexico as well as filmmakers with meaningful ties to these areas to submit narrative and documentary short films.  Films in all languages are welcomed and encouraged, but we request that films that are not in English be submitted with English subtitles to ensure that the translations best represent the filmmaker’s vision.  The winners for Best Narrative Short Film and Best Documentary Short Film will each be awarded a prize of $1,000.  There will be two additional Jury Prizes of $500 selected by a panel of six jurors.  Jurors include filmmakers Damon Davis and Kimberly Rivers Roberts for the Documentary Jury Prize and filmmakers Bassam Tariq and Giorgio Angelini for the Narrative Jury Prize. HCAS will be announcing the two remaining jurors soon.


Damon Davis is an award-winning, post-disciplinary artist who works and resides in St. Louis, Missouri. In a practice that is part therapy, part social commentary, his work spans across a spectrum of creative mediums to tell stories exploring how identity is informed by power and mythology. Davis seeks to empower and give voice to the powerless and combat systems of oppression, focusing not only on pain but also on the joy of the Black experience. Davis co-directed the critically acclaimed film Whose Streets? with Sabaah Folayan, on the Ferguson Uprising. Davis is a 2015 Firelight Media Fellow, 2016 Sundance Music and Sound Design Lab Fellow, 2017 TED Fellow, and 2017 Root100 Honoree. His work is featured in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, and he has exhibited at Art Basel Miami, the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts, and the San Diego Contemporary Museum of Art. 


Kimberly Rivers-Roberts (Queen Blackkoldmadina) is a New Orleans born and bred director, producer, rap artist, film star, and inspirational speaker who currently lives in the lower 9th ward. She is the director/producer of Fear No Gumbo (2016), which is the follow up to Best Documentary Feature Academy Award nominated Trouble the Water (2008). Kimberly starred in, co-directed, and created the soundtrack for Trouble the Water. Fear No Gumbo won the best documentary awards at the 2018 Hip Hop Film Festival in Harlem, NYC and the LA Femme Interational Film Festival in Los Angeles. 


Bassam Tariq is a Houston and NYC bred documentary and narrative filmmaker, screenwriter and producer born in Karachi, Pakistan. His debut fiction feature Mogul Mowgli, starring Riz Ahmed, premiered at Berlinale 2020 and won the International Critics Prize. He is a TED Fellow and was named Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” His previous film Ghosts of Sugar Land (2019) won the Short Film Jury Prize at Sundance and was released as a Netflix Original. In 2015, he was a fellow of Sundance’s Art Of Non Fiction Residency and participated in the 2017 Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab for his first narrative feature. In 2019, he accepted the Field of Vision Fellowship helmed by Laura Poitras. His work aims to uncover the diversity of Muslin life and experience. 


Giorgio Angelini came into film from a multi-faceted career in the creative arts. After touring in bands like The Rosebuds and Bishop Allen for much of his 20s, Giorgio enrolled in the Masters of Architecture program at Rice University during the 2008 real estate collapse, planting the seeds for Giorgio’s directorial debut, OWNED: A Tale of Two Americas. Following graduate school, Angelini began working with the boutique architecture firm, Schaum Shieh Architects, where he designed the White Oak Music Hall in Houston, Texas, as well as the headquarters for The Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology. Giorgio launched a production company (Ready Fictions) in 2019 with his producing partner, Arthur Jones. Giorgio served as executive producer for the feature film My Friend Dahmer (2017) and directed a documentary-short for celebrated performance artist Mary Ellen Carroll entitled My Death is Pending…Because. Giorgio is also the Executive Producer for the upcoming coming-of-age drama, Shoplifters of the World.


For more information, visit: https://www.cinemahtx.org/borders-no-borders/


To submit a film, visit: https://filmfreeway.com/BordersNoBorders


About Houston Cinema Arts Society


Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting unique and innovative film programs, multimedia installations and performances, and educational opportunities to engage, enrich, and empower Houston’s diverse communities and cultures.  HCAS flagship programs include the Houston Cinema Arts Festival held annually in November, the Cinespace short film competition (a collaboration with NASA challenging filmmakers to create films from the NASA archives), and the Black Media Story Summit (a collaboration with Black Public Media, the Austin Film Society, and the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation).  HCAS is dedicated to serving Houston filmmakers and film lovers and engaging in meaningful partnerships with creative individuals and organizations at the intersection of cinema with the visual arts, music, theatre, literature, dance, culture, science, and the humanities.  HCAS is generously supported by Houston First Corporation, Levantine Films, Franci Neely Foundation, Petrello Family Foundation, Cabrina & Steven Owsley, Carrin Patman & Jim Derrick, Catherine Asher Morgan, Sara and Bill Morgan, Louisa Stude Sarofim, Nina & Michael Zilkha, Mark Wawro, Amegy Bank, Kinder Foundation,  Brown Foundation, Texas Film Commission, Houston Film Commission, Texas Commission for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and Houston Arts Alliance. The 2020 Houston Cinema Arts Festival will take place from November 12-16.

Houston Cinema Arts Society Takes Viewers Through the Iterative Hillerbrand+Magsamen Home

Houston Cinema Arts Society presents a free virtual screening of six short films by the Houston-based art duo Hillerbrand+Masamen, including the debut of a new video, Shelter in Place, in conversation with the Covid19 pandemic and current political and social times, supported by the Houston Cinema Arts Society. Hillerbrand+Magsamen will join HCAS Artistic Director Jessica Green on Instagram Live for a virtual Q&A on Wednesday, July 16th at 7pm CST. 


Hillerbrand+Magsamen are the photographers and the photographed, their home is the canvas, their actions are the content, and their family is the subject. They are interested in how their relationships are constantly changing as they grow older. They draw upon the Fluxus practice of incorporating humor, performance, video and everyday objects in order to have a conversation about family dynamics, suburban life and American consumer excess. Each work deals with familial joys and discontents, each taking place in or around the home. 


The new work, Shelter in Place, reflects how the Covid19 pandemic changed their home, family, community and politics in new ways rife with fear but also new ways of seeing and being together. From face masks to quarantine to zoom calls, methods for connecting are forever changed. In this video they take large sheets of recycled plastic to physicalize our air, breath, objects and space as they move and interact through their home.


Additional work shown, includes DIY Love Seat, a playful experimental short video that reinterprets family and its identity, as well as Whole, an epic adventure of exploration through breaking and cutting holes into Hillerbrand+Masgsamen’s actual home to make a habitrail-like environment. Four Place Setting, ETA, and Whether finish out the six films screened.


“The art practice of Hillerbrand+Magsamen is just what the doctor ordered right about now,” HCAS Artistic Director Jessica Green says. “Both incredibly playful and moving, their fearless work is rooted in family and its joys and discontents, home, parenthood, childhood, growing older and old, love, security, and nurturance. Hillerbrand+Magsamen’s comment on 21st century surburbanish American life manages to be timely and timeless, and in the Covid-19 family ‘pod’ era utterly prescient.”


Hillerbrand+Magsamen’s practice utilizes collaboration, process and media experimentation through videos, photography, installations and interdisciplinary performances. They explore their relationships to each other and society with an uncanny sensibility that merges the real and unreal, blurring boundaries between life and art and often includes their two children, Maddie and Emmett.  


Hillerbrand+Magsamen’s work has been presented at festivals including the Houston Cinema Arts Festival/CineSpace, London SciFi Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Fusebox Festival (Austin, TX), CounterCurrent Festival (Houston, TX) and Diffusion Photography Festival (Wales, UK). Exhibitions include the Grand Rapids Art Museum (Grand Rapids, MI), Everson Museum (Syracuse, NY), and Center for Photography Woodstock (Woodstock, NY). They have received grants from Sustainable Arts Foundation, Austin Film Society, Houston Arts Alliance and Experimental Television Center and participated in residency programs: Wassaic Projects (Wassaic, NY), Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), I-Park (East Haddam, CT), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (New York, NY), Experimental Television Center (Owego, NY), Elsewhere (Greensboro, NC), Lawndale Art Center (Houston, TX) and Santa Fe Art Institute (Santa Fe, NM). They were awarded a residency at the Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva for 2020. 

 

Stephan Hillerbrand is an Associate Professor at the University of Houston. Mary Magsamen is the Curator at Aurora Picture Show.


For more information, visit: https://www.cinemahtx.org/event/hillerbrandmagsamen-virtual-home-tour/


To RSVP, visit: https://watch.eventive.org/hcas/play/5efb91419033bf003ee6d2b3

HCAS Pays Tribute to Juneteeth and DJ Screw Day with Virtual Encore of “Cry of the Third Eye: The Last Resort”

Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is partnering with Aurora Picture Show to present the Houston premiere virtual theatrical run of Lisa E. Harris’ Cry of the Third Eye: The Last Resort from Friday, June 19th (Juneteenth) to Saturday, June 27th (RIP DJ Screw). Lisa E. Harris will also answer audience questions on Wednesday, June 24th at 7:00pm, moderated by HCAS Artistic Director Jessica Green, on Instagram Live. 


Cry of the Third Eye: The Last Resort (2019) is the third and final act of Cry of the Third Eye, a three-act performed opera film by artist Grammy-Nominated Lisa E. Harris that considers gentrification, intergenerational legacy, loss, and the space of dreams. The completion of this meditational trilogy which spans a decade in the Historic Third Ward District of Houston, archives aspects of the artist’s inner and outer environments as they change over time.


Lisa will only be answering questions via IG Live and will not be performing virtually, issuing the following statement:


Black Bodies in Space: A Performer’s response to Dead Performance Online


I will not be engaging in live performance online during the pandemic, in light of more recent killings and public lynchings of Black people in this country. I will not share my Life performance in the same space that Death performance is being created, distributed and consumed. This online dead performance practice that continues to happen on us is terrorizing and institutionally funded. I am reminded that the public sphere is not obligated to any part of my Life performance, and I will not subjugate myself willingly to the entropic communion that insists on persisting.


As long as Black bodies are being forced to perform dead online, I will not be performing live online.


As long as I am Black, I will not be performing live online until I feel like my Black body is safe in space.


Li Harris May 27, 2020


The run of this free program goes from June 19th, the 155th anniversary of Juneteeth, and runs through June 27th, known as DJ Screw Day, celebrating the prolific “chopped and screwed” artist’s track “June 27” released in 1996. DJ Screw, who died tragically of a drug overdose 20 years ago on November 16th, was the most well known member of the Screwed Up Click, which George Floyd was also a part of, known as “Big Floyd.” George Floyd was a beloved member of the Third Ward community, with a footprint in the spiritual and cultural sphere. These important historical days of remembrance bookend a program that serves as an ode to Third Ward, Black Houston, Black America, and the global Black diaspora.  


About Lisa E. Harris


Lisa E. Harris, Li, is an independent and interdisciplinary artist, creative soprano, performer, composer, improviser, writer, singer/songwriter and educator from Houston. Li’s work focuses on the energetic relationships between body, land, spirit and place. Using voice, theremin, movement, meditation and new media to explore spatial awareness, relationality, panoptical surveillance and sonic profiling, she maintains a focused concentration on healing in performance and living. She is the founder and creative director of Studio Enertia, an arts collective with Pittsburgh creator Alisha B. Wormsley. Studio Enertia produced Harris’s 10 year durational work, Cry of the Third Eye, a new opera film in Three Acts that archives the effects of gentrification on her Houston neighborhood. Recent engagements include ‘The Nubian Word for Flowers- a phantom Opera’ by Pauline Oliveros and IONE, and ‘Earthseed’, a co-composition commission with Nicole M. Mitchell for Chicago’s Art Institute.

Houston Cinema Arts Society Celebrates Space City with a Family Friendly Drive In Double Feature

Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) is landing at the Showboat Drive-In for a Space City themed double feature of Neon films Spaceship Earth and Apollo 11 on June 11th at 8:30pm. This family friendly outdoor event offers viewers a chance to see two documentary highlights from previous Sundance Film Festivals on the big screen with the SpaceX rocket launches fresh in the imagination. This program is co-presented with CineSpace, HCAS’s collaborative short film competition with NASA. Both Spaceship Earth and Apollo 11 are notable for their innovative use of archival footage, and HCAS hopes they will inspire filmmakers in the audience to submit to CineSpace for a new special prize for Best Film Using Exclusively NASA Archival Footage.  This special prize was created in response to the pandemic to create an opportunity for filmmakers to make films entirely from home.


Director Matt Wolf (Spaceship Earth, Recorder: The Marion Strokes Project) will join HCAS Marketing Manager Michael Robinson for a Instagram Live conversation preceding the showing on June 10th at 4pm at @cinemahtx. 


Spaceship Earth is the true, stranger-than-fiction, adventure of eight visionaries who in 1991 spent two years quarantined inside of a self-engineered replica of Earth’s ecosystem called BIOSPHERE 2. The experiment was a worldwide phenomenon, chronicling daily existence in the face of life threatening ecological disaster and a growing criticism that it was nothing more than the escapade of a cult. The bizarre story is both a cautionary tale and a hopeful lesson of how a small group of dreamers can potentially reimagine a new world.


Director Todd Douglas Miller (Dinosaur 13) finalizes a cinematic event fifty years in the making with Apollo 11. Crafted from a newly discovered trove of 65mm footage and more than 11,000 hours of uncatalogued audio recordings, Apollo 11 takes us straight to the heart of NASA’s most celebrated mission—the one that first put men on the moon and forever made Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin into household names. From the perspectives of the astronauts,  Mission Control, and millions of spectators on the ground, we vividly experience those momentous days and hours in 1969 when humankind took a giant leap into the future.


CineSpace is a short film competition created by NASA and HCAS that offers filmmakers around the world a chance to share work inspired by exploration of the NASA archives and created using NASA archival footage. Winners and finalists are announced and screened at the annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival.


Due to the landscape of collaborative filmmaking in this time of pandemic, there are many limitations on filmmakers’ abilities to shoot or acquire new footage and interface with production crews and talent.  In response to these limitations, CineSpace created a new prize for Best Film Using Exclusively NASA Archival Footage. This award challenges filmmakers to take a deep dive into NASA’s archives and create short films using exclusively NASA archival footage. Filmmakers are encouraged to search for unusual or not commonly used footage. These archival films can include NASA audio and/or graphics from any publicly available sources and can span any genre.


For more information, visit https://www.cinemahtx.org/event/spaceship-earth-apollo-11-double-feature/

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