HCAF

Buzz Magazine-HCAF18

Cinema arts

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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.

 

Houstonia: What’s in Store at the 10th Annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival?

When 2-D cinematic experiences aren’t enough, there’s HCAF.

By Chris Gray  10/17/2018 at 3:30pm

FOR ITS 10TH YEAR, the Houston Cinema Arts Festival is feeling retrospective.

Just don’t think that means “nostalgic.”

Founded a decade ago by the nascent Houston Cinema Arts Society, the five-day array of screenings, multimedia installations, and live performances continues to rely on—and define itself by—unique happenings that provide the kind of immersive experiences 2-D screens simply can’t.

“We are trying to add more live events that can’t be duplicated by sitting at home and watching Netflix,” says HCAS Executive Director Patrick Kwiatkowski.

A pair of virtual-reality installations featuring innovative digital auteur Kim Voynar should clear that bar alone. At the same time, HCAF remains the best place to glimpse the upcoming awards season firsthand; last year it unveiled Call Me By Your Name and I, Tonya fresh off their Toronto International Film Festival debuts. (Check the website for late-breaking 2018 additions.)

This year, returning guests include composer Donald Sosin and violinist Alicia Svigals, who will accompany a screening of 1923 German silent film The Ancient Law; and Scott Stark, the Austin-based experimental filmmaker who will preside over the live image manipulation of his Love and the Epiphanists.

One sure highlight will be HCAF alum Sam Green’s in-person narration of A Thousand Thoughts, his “live documentary” about Kronos Quartet. As the Grammy-winning avant-garde ensemble performs at the relatively intimate Asia Society Texas Center, past collaborators like Phillip Glass, Terry Reilly, and Laurie Anderson will discuss Kronos’s groundbreaking career onscreen. Green’s film killed at Sundance this past winter.

Appropriately, HCAF’s final screening will be The Last Movie, the late Dennis Hopper’s Godard-inspired 1971 follow-up to Easy Rider. The film was so self-indulgent and incoherent (to some) it made Hopper a Hollywood pariah for years. Universal refused to distribute it, and even Hopper himself once admitted “it’s not a very pleasant experience for most audiences.”

But others, like Repo Man director Alex Cox, found it prophetic.

At Rice Cinema, Cox will screen The Last Movie as a tribute to the time Hopper visited the campus movie house—then known as Rice Media Center—to show 1983’s Out of the Blue. He capped off a madcap evening by performing the “Russian Dynamite Death Chair” stunt at a nearby racetrack.

Look it up; stories like that are why the Internet exists. A little of that daredevil spirit lives in HCAF.

Thanks to the festival, these type of events are now a lot more accessible—if a little less deadly.

Houston Cinema Arts Festival, Nov. 8–12. Tickets from $12 (All-access passes $149). Various locations. Full schedule and tickets available at cinemahtx.org.

For Houstonia FULL ARTICLE:

Glasstire-HCAF 10th Anniversary

Houston Cinema Arts Festival Returns for 10th Anniversary

by Glasstire October 16, 2018

1

HCAF 10th Anniversary Festival

From November 8-12, 2018, the Houston Cinema Arts Festival (HCAF) returns to Houston for an impressive and varied array of new releases, special screenings, shorts, and archival films. Screenings will be held at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Rice Cinema, White Oak Music Hall, Café Brasil, and additional partner venues across the city of Houston. Guest artists and speakers include novelist Jonathan Lethem, directors Alex Cox, Nathaniel Kahn, Sam Green, and Lynn Hershman Leeson, and photographers Frederick Baldwin and Wendy Watriss.

In addition to the screenings, this year’s HCAF has a distinct focus on live music. A Dazed and Confused Cinema Arts Celebration: The Music of Richard Linklater will take place on Friday, November 9 at the White Oak Music Hall. For the event, the band Handsomebeast will play covers of songs from Dazed and Confused, and legendary Houston rapper Bun B will perform the classic “Rapper’s Delight” as well songs from his new album. On Sunday, November 11, the Kronos Quartet, an internationally acclaimed string quartet, will play a live accompaniment to the documentary A Thousand Nights, which includes interviews with such artists as Philip Glass, Tanya Tagaq, Steve Reich, Wu Man, and Terry Riley.

“With classical innovators Kronos Quartet, rapper Bun B, blues artist Corey Harris, punk DJ Don Bolles, Klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals, and guitarist Marisa Anderson, among other musicians, in our line-up,” states HCAF Artistic Director Richard Herskowitz, “we are as much a music as a film festival. You might, in fact, call us a Cinema Arts festival, as we’ve always aspired to be.”

Other highlights of the festival include:

Citizen Blue: a documentary exploring James Blue, who founded Houston’s Rice Media Center and the Southwest Alternate Media Project..

Widows: Director Steve Mcqueen’s first feature film since his devastating and instant classic 12 Years a Slave. Early word on Widows is very strong, with McQueen working in the heist/revenge genre and injecting it with a social urgency.

At Eternity’s Gate: Artist/filmmaker Julian Schnabel returns to the artist biopic, with an impressionistic portrait of Vincent Van Gogh (played by Willem Dafoe). This screening arrives just before a major exhibit at the MFAH of Van Gogh’s work in March 2019.

Roma: Visionary director Alfonso Cuarón’s (Gravity, Children of Men) black and white epic of 1970s Mexico City promises to be one of the most lush and beautiful films of 2018.

The Last Movie: Dennis Hopper’s follow up to the massive success of Easy Rider drove him into madness and effectively ended his career for nearly a decade, until his comeback with the sublimely underrated Out of the Blue. Long thought of as a bloated failure, The Last Movie has recently received a critical reappraisal and is now noted as landmark piece of hallucinatory filmmaking.

This year also marks the fourth edition of Cinespace, a NASA-inspired mini festival that is part of the HCAF. Additionally, the festival will present an immersive VR experience at the Sawyer Yards Silos and a silent film about the peak of Jewish German Expressionism, with live Klezmer violin, and much more.

A full schedule and ticket options can be found here.

Broadway World: HCAF 2018 Lineup

Houston Cinema Arts Festival Announces 2018 Lineup

Houston Cinema Arts Festival Announces 2018 Lineup

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The Houston Cinema Arts Society is pleased to announce the full lineup of films, guest artists, live performances, and interactive elements that will populate the 2018 Houston Cinema Arts Festival – as it celebrates its milestone 10th anniversary – from November 8 – 12 at Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Rice Cinema, White Oak Music Hall, Cafe? Brasil, and additional partner venues across the City of Houston.

Opening Night

The Houston Cinema Arts Festival will launch with dual opening night films on Thursday, November 8. At MFAH, Director Dava Whisenant and subject Steve Young will present Bathtubs Over Broadway, a documentary that follows Young – a former comedy writer for David Letterman – on a bizarre quest to learn as much as he can about a clandestine and forgotten collection of Broadway-style recordings about some of America’s most recognizable brands, including General Electric, McDonald’s, and Xerox. The uproarious film includes commentary from the likes of David Letterman, Chita Rivera, Martin Short, Jello Biafra, and more.

The MFAH screening will conclude with a post-screening reception in the MFAH Cullinan Hall DJ’ed by Don Bolles – the gregarious drummer from the group Germs and Ariel Pink – who is one of the collectors featured in Bathtubs Over Broadway. Bolles will spin some mind-blowing songs from his own Industrial Musical record collection.

Down the road at Rice Cinema, University of Oregon professor and filmmaker Daniel Miller will present Citizen Blue, a comprehensive documentary that explores the legacy of the late Oscar-nominated and Cannes award-winning filmmaker James Blue, a prominent media educator and activist who founded Houston’s Rice Media Center and the Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP). Citizen Blue will be preceded by Skip Day, a short film from HCAF 2017 alumni Patrick Bresnan and Ivete Lucas, whose photo and video exhibition Rabbit Hunt will open in the Rice Media Center that evening. Skip Day premiered and won the Short Film Award at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

A Music and Film Festival

After expanding in 2017 with a musical tribute to Singin’ in the Rain and the city’s resilience after Hurricane Harvey, the annual Cinema Arts Celebration will return in a major way for the festival’s 10th anniversary. A Dazed and Confused Cinema Arts Celebration: The Music of Richard Linklater will take place on Friday, November 9 at White Oak Music Hall. Academy Award-nominated director Richard Linklater, a member of the Festival’s board and its first Opening Night guest in 2009, will attend the event and speak with “Houston’s Unofficial Mayor” Bun B, a longterm HCAF board member and participant, about the soundtrack selections in two of his most acclaimed films – Dazed and Confused (on its 25th anniversary) and Dazed’s “spiritual sequel”, Everybody Wants Some!!

Following the discussion, Houston-based bandHandsomebeastwill take the stage and perform renditions of songs from both Dazed and Confused and Everybody Wants Some!!, accompanied by clips from each film. Bun B will follow Handsomebeast with his own version of the seminal hip-hop track “Rapper’s Delight”, which appears in Everybody Wants Some!! He will then perform – accompanied by special guests – several songs from his new album “Return of the Trill” – his first album in five years. The evening will close with dance music spun by DJ Ramalama (Matt Johns).

The festival will continue its weekend of music and film events with two live documentary performances of A Thousand Thoughts at Asia Society Texas Center on Sunday, November 11. Narrated live by director Sam Green, the unusual combination of live concert and film screening will be held at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. During each of the two limited-seating performances, Kronos Quartet – a celebrated and groundbreaking string quartet from San Francisco, CA – will perform alongside new and archival footage about its storied career. The wildly creative multimedia performance piece blends live music and narration with archival footage and filmed interviews with such notable artists as Philip Glass, Tanya Tagaq, Steve Reich, Wu Man, and Terry Riley.

Another cinematic and musical experience will be held on Saturday, November 10 at 6:30 PM at the new Moody Center for Performing Arts on the Rice campus. FotoFest International co-founders and Houston arts icons Frederick Baldwin and Wendy Watriss will present The Low Turn Row: A Journey in Time. The project is a multimedia work, part of a larger work-in- progress and upcoming documentary film, incorporating music, video, still photographs, live performance, and dialogue with the audience. The focus of the presentation is a county in Texas – Grimes County just north of Houston – that was the site of Baldwin and Watriss’ first joint photography project. Living for two years in the back pasture among African American farmers, Baldwin and Watriss photographed, listened to, and recorded the stories of people from all cultures who settled and developed Grimes County. The ground-breaking blues performer Corey Harris will perform the music of Mance Lipscomb, whose songs described the experiences of African Americans in Grimes County where he was born.

Other live music and film performances include The Ancient Law (Das Alte Gesetz), the newly RESTORED 1923 classic considered to be the highpoint of Jewish filmmaking in Germany, with pianist Donald Sosin and Klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals returning to HCAF to perform their new musical score live. At the Aurora Picture Show on November 12, guitarist Marisa Anderson and multi-instrumentalist Walt McClements (Lonesome Leash, Hooray for the Riff Raff) will join experimental filmmakers Vanessa Renwick and self-taught visual artist and animator Brent Green (also HCAF veterans) for a night of Live Music and Film.

“With classical innovators Kronos Quartet, rapper Bun B, blues artist Corey Harris, punk DJ Don Bolles, Klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals, and guitarist Marisa Anderson, among other musicians, in our line-up,” states HCAF Artistic Director Richard Herskowitz, “we are as much a music as a film festival. You might, in fact, call us a Cinema Arts festival, as we’ve always aspired to be.”

Premieres of Major Upcoming Releases

The 2018 Houston Cinema Arts Festival yet again boasts a collection of critically acclaimed and buzzed-about Fall film festival hits, many of which are considered to be candidates for next year’s OSCARS ®

Widows (Centerpiece Screening, 11/9 at MFAH), Steve McQueen’s highly anticipated directorial return following 12 Years a Slave, follows four women in contemporary Chicago – Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, and Cynthia Erivo – with nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead husbands’ criminal activities. The women take fate into their own hands and conspire to forge a future on their own terms.

Maria By Callas (11/10 at MFAH) is an intimate look at the life and work of Greek-American opera singer, Maria Callas, as told in her own words. Callas was one of the most influential and renowned opera singers of the 20th century. During the course of the film, never-before-seen footage and performances offer insight into Callas’s tumultuous life and brilliant career.

At Eternity’s Gate (Centerpiece Screening, 11/10 at MFAH) is a film about the final days of painter Vincent van Gogh. Directed by painter/filmmaker Julian Schnabel – one of the inspirations for the “arts and film” concept of the Houston Cinema Arts Festival – stars Willem Dafoe (as Vincent van Gogh), Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac, and Mads Mikkelsen. At Eternity’s Gate was previously screened in the main competition section of the 75th Venice International Film Festival, where Dafoe won the Coppa Volpi (Best Actor) award. ** The screening arrives just ahead of a major MFAH exhibition opening in March entitled, “Vincent Van Gogh: His Life in Art.”**

Vox Lux (Centerpiece Screening, 11/10 at MFAH), a musical drama written and directed by Brady Corbet, begins in 1999 with teenage sisters Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) and Eleanor (Stacy Martin), who have survived a seismic, violent tragedy. The sisters compose and perform a song about their experience, making something lovely and cathartic out of catastrophe – while also launching a career. By the film’s second half, set in 2017, the now 31-year-old Celeste (Natalie Portman) is mother to a teenage daughter of her own (Raffey Cassidy) and struggling to navigate a career fraught with scandals when another act of terrifying violence demands her attention.

Roma (Centerpiece Screening, 11/11 at MFAH): Written and directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuaro?n, Roma is story that chronicles a tumultuous year in the life of a middle-class family in Mexico City in the early 1970s. The film won the Golden Lion award at the 75th Venice International Film Festival and has been selected as the representative from Mexico in the category of Best Foreign Language Film at the upcoming 91st Academy Awards.

Green Book (Closing Night film on 11/12 at MFAH): When Tony Lip (Mortensen), a bouncer from the Bronx, is hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley (Ali), a world-class Black pianist, on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on “The Green Book” to guide them to the few establishments that were then safe for African-Americans. Confronted with racism, danger-as well as unexpected humanity and humor-they are forced to set aside differences to survive and thrive on THE JOURNEY of a lifetime. Green Book had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2018, where it won the People’s Choice Award. Directed by Peter Farrelly.

A Virtual Reality Theater

On Saturday, November 10, HCAF 2018 will debut a unique cinematic experience in the form of 360 Cinema, a virtual reality program being held from 10 AM to 7 PM at Sawyer Yards in conjunction with Second Saturday – an art gallery showcase event that takes place on the second Saturday of each month. 360 Cinema – comprised of six short films selected for the Houston Cinema Arts Society by Kim Voynar of WonderTek Labs LLC – will take place every 90 minutes throughout the day.

The six films in the program – which range in subject matter from experimental storytelling, to immersive dance, to abstract metaphorical 360° artworks – will play one after another for the duration of 35 minutes. A Q&A portion will immediately follow each screening.

Additionally, another unique VR experience will be presented by HCAF throughout the Festival week of November 8-12. Queerskins, a love story – a virtual reality experience for Oculus Touch – will be shown as a site-specific interactive installation at Rice Media Center. Queerskins positions visitors – wearing Oculus headsets – in the back seat of a photorealistic vintage 1986 Cadillac DeVille behind two grieving parents, Ed (Drew Moore) and Mary-Helen (Hadley Boyd), as they take a magic realist journey down a country road, which becomes a memory lane populated with scrapbook artifacts from their estranged son’s peripatetic life. A conversation with artist Illya Szilak and Kim Voynar will be held on Friday, November 9 at noon at Rice Media Center.

Special Guests and Screenings

Alex Cox, the legendary director of Sid and Nancy and Repo Man, will come to Houston to present the appropriately titled closing night film on November 12, Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie. Hopper’s film follows a Hollywood movie crew in the midst of making a western in a remote Peruvian village. The film is among the most storied, catastrophic productions of the New Hollywood Era and will be presented newly RESTORED in 4K. Cox will remain in Houston one day after the Festival to present at Rice Cinema the subversive feature film that derailed his own career in Hollywood, Walker (1987).

Jonathan Lethem, noted novelist of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, will join filmmaker Fred Barney Taylor for a screening of Lethem, a portrait of the author featuring those who have impacted his life. These include his oldest friend, Michael Seidenberg, a bookseller whose bookshops were stocked with books that he would rather not sell; his younger brother Blake, a legendary graffiti writer; his father, Richard Brown Lethem, a well- known painter; and his good friend Hampton Fancher, the screenwriter and producer of the Blade Runner films. The film will screen on November 11 at the MFAH, and is cosponsored with Inprint, which brings Lethem to Houston as part of the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series on November 12 to read from his new novel, The Feral Detective.

This Changes Everything, screening on November 10 at Rice, explores the insidious and systemic sexism in Hollywood through the articulate voices of some of the industry’s leading artists, including Geena Davis (the film’s executive producer), Meryl Streep, Sandra Oh, Jessica Chastain, Natalie Portman, and many other ambassadors of the #TimesUp movement. One of the film’s leading voices, Maria Giese, instigated the biggest industry-wide Federal investigation for women directors in Hollywood history. Giese will come to Houston to present the film and engage with local audiences.

During the afternoon on Saturday, November 10 at the Museum of Fine Arts, an exciting screening and discussion will take place around the film The Price of Everything, a documentary that explores the labyrinth of the contemporary art world. The film features collectors, dealers, auctioneers, and a wide range of artists, from current market darlings Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, to one-time art star Larry Poons. Following the film, two notable Houston arts professionals, Alison de Lima Greene, the MFA’s Isabel Brown Wilson Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art and Jessica Phifer, Associate Vice President and Senior Account Manager of the Southwest Region for Christie’s Auction House will delve deeper into the film’s arguments with director Nathaniel Kahn (the director of My Architect, about his father Louis Kahn) and producer Jennifer Stockman, former president of the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Last but not least, CineSpace – a short film competition in partnership with NASA – returns for the fourth year, judged by director Richard Linklater. After finalists are selected and announced online on Monday, October 15, prizewinners across multiple categories will subsequently be presented at Rice Cinema on Saturday, November 10 at 9:00 PM.

Films about Art and Artists

True to its mission, HCAF 2018 will explore a wide range of art forms through the medium of film.

ARCHITECTURE: James Blue’s Invisible City: Houston’s Housing Crisis, his pioneering 1979 Houston public television series, will be presented at Rice Cinema on November 11 by its co-director, architect Adele Naude? Santos, as part of the ArCH Film Festival section of this year’s festival. Santos was an Architecture professor at Rice University when James Blue taught there as well, and she went on to an illustrious architectural career, recently retiring as Dean of the MIT School of Architecture. Giorgio Angelini, whose film Owned, a Tale of Two Americas delves into similar issues of race and gentrification and is the second film in the ArCH section, was inspired to make his film while studying in the Rice Architecture program. Angelini will return to Houston to present his film at Rice Cinema on November 10. The Architecture Center Houston will expand the ArCH Film Festival with four more events at venues throughout Houston from November 6-16.

CULINARY ARTS: Chef Flynn (11/9 at Rice): Ten-year-old Flynn McGarry transforms his living room into a supper club using his classmates as line cooks. Achieving sudden fame, Flynn outgrows his bedroom kitchen and sets out to challenge the hierarchy of the culinary world.

THEATER ARTS: The Rest I Make Up (11/9 at Rice): The visionary Cuban-American dramatist Maria Irene Fornes, constructed astonishing worlds onstage, writing over 40 plays and winning nine Obie Awards. When she gradually stops writing due to dementia, an unexpected friendship with filmmaker Michelle Memran reignites her spontaneous creative spirit and triggers a decade-long collaboration.

VISUAL ART: Jaddoland with Director Nadia Shahib and her mother, Lahib Jaddo (11/11 at Rice): When Nadia Shahib returns to her hometown in the Texas panhandle to visit her mother, an artist from Iraq, she turns her lens on her mother’s increasingly isolated life, as well as the beauty and solace that emerge through her creative process.

DANCE: In Rob Fruchtman’s Moving Stories, six diverse dancers from the acclaimed Battery Dance company in New York travel the world to work with young people in Romania, Korea, India and Iraq who have experienced war, poverty, sexual exploitation, and trauma as refugees. The dancers, (including Clement Mensah, who will accompany the film and also meet with Houston students during his visit) teach these youth the tools of choreography so that they can tell their stories through dance.

Cinema on the Verge

HCAF’s commitment to cinematic experimentation continues with several notable guest presenters

Imaging Actors with Lynn Hershman Leeson and Stacey Steers (11/9 at Brasil): Two media artists who presented memorable programs during HCAF’s first decade return to Houston with a selection of works that play with the images of notable Hollywood actresses. Artist Lynn Hershman will screen her latest film, Vertighost, which offers a feminist riff on Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Stacey Steers will project her two latest handmade collage films, Night Hunter and Edge of Alchemy.

Love and the Epiphanists: A Scott Stark Performance (11/10 at Rice): Building in elements of humor and incongruity, Austin-based media artist Scott Stark returns to HCAF to present five short works and his new multi-screen performance drawn from Hollywood movie trailers – Love and the Epiphanists.

Compressed Air: The Best Experimental Films of 2018 with Michael Sicinski (11/11 at Rice): Thoughtfully chosen by film critic and University of Houston lecturer Michael Sicinski, this surprising compilation of contemporary short films features several USA, North American and World premieres. Artists represented include Saul Levine, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Jodie Mack, Stephanie Barber, and more.

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 November 8-12.

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