Last Night at the Alamo
The fifth-annual Oak Cliff Film Festival kicks off Thursday night and runs through Sunday.
It’s one of the biggest events in our neighborhood, and it’s a way to catch a heck of a lot of culture in just a few days, all within biking distance of your house.
If that’s not enough, let us enumerate the reasons to attend the Oak Cliff Film Festival.
MUSIC AND PARTIES
“Last Night at the Alamo” is the first film of the festival, and a Q&A with SXSW c0-founder Louis Black follows the film. There’s a “doomed cowboy” party after that, with DJ Horseshoes and Hand Grenades.
“Los Punks,” a documentary about Hispanic punk rock in East Los Angeles, screens at the Wild Detectives at 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 17. Afterward, there’s live music from Bender LocoXon, SERES and DJ set from Mutarrancho. It costs $5.
“Goodnight Brooklyn” is a documentary about the band Death by Audio. A Place to Bury Strangers follows the 10:45 p.m. screening at the Texas Theatre Friday.
“Hunt for the Wilderpeople” closes out the festival at 8 p.m. Sunday, and DJ Gabriel and George Quartz perform a set afterward.
FREE EVENTS
College and high school students can register for this free filmmaking workshop from KD Conservatory.
Seed & Spark hosts a free panel on crowdfunding from 10:30 a.m.-noon Saturday, June 18.
A panel of filmmakers and writers discusses music and film distribution from 12:30-1:30 p.m. Saturday.
TEXAS FILMS AND FILMMAKERS
“Hi, How Are You Daniel Johnston?” is an 18-minute documentary about the Austin-based musician and artist. It’s among the documentary short films that screen at the Kessler Theater starting at 1 p.m. Sunday.
There’s the aforementioned “Last Night at the Alamo,” Eagle Pennell’s 1983 film about hanging out in a Houston dive bar the night before it’s demolished.
“Badlands” plays at 7 p.m. Friday. It’s not set in Texas, but it does star Texan Sissy Spacek.
Texas filmmakers David Lowery and Toby Halbrooks host a screening of the 1986 so-bad-it’s-good Disney movie “Flight of the Navigator” at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center at 8:45 p.m. Saturday.
LATINO MOVIES
There’s “Los Punks,” as previously mentioned.
“Neon Bull” is a Brazilian feature film about young cowboys. Catch it at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center at 8:15 p.m. Sunday.
One of the student shorts playing at the Bishop Arts Theater Center at 7 p.m. Friday is “Piñatera Ramirez,” about a master piñata makers in Reynosa.
“Boniato” screens with the late-night shorts, 8:15 p.m. Saturday at the Basement Gallery. It’s a narrative film about an illegal migrant worker who crosses the border to look for her father, and it has a supernatural twist.
“Dead Sites,” a short film about an artist who lays crosses where immigrants have died in the Sonoran desert, screens as part of the documentary shorts, 1 p.m. Sunday at the Kessler.
LGBTQ MOVIES
“Uncle Howard” is a documentary about documentary filmmaker Howard Brookner, who died of AIDS in 1989. It screens at the Texas Theatre Saturday at 5:15 p.m.
There are two short films about AIDS in America: “1985” screens as part of the narrative shorts 1 p.m Saturday at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center. “When AIDS Was Funny” is part of the documentary shorts 1 p.m. Sunday at the Kessler.
“Pronouns,” about a teenager from the south side of Chicago who decides to reveal their true identity during a spoken word performance, also is in the narrative shorts Saturday.
“Hunky Dory” is a feature film about “a dive bar drag queen” who must look after his 11-year-old son after his ex disappears. It shows at 7:15 p.m. Saturday at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center.
