The Big D cinema celebration kicks off April 25 with a lineup ranging from a tribute to Willie Nelson’s favorite roadie to documentaries about notable Native Americans.
The Dallas International Film Festival is ready to start reeling Friday, April 25, as the 19th annual cinema celebration kicks off in Big D.
This year’s edition of DIFF, which was named in October as an Oscar Qualifying Festival by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will feature screenings of more than 120 films, Q&A sessions, and panels with filmmakers and actors, nightly DIFF Red Carpets, and other special events. The movie marathon will continue through May 1. Ticket information and showtimes are available here.
Among the titles on our C&I radar, with synopsis info drawn from the DIFF catalogue and our own postings:
Chain Reactions
Fifty years after Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre shocked the world and forever changed the face of global cinema and popular culture, director Alexandre O. Philippe (The People vs. George Lucas) charts the film’s profound impact and lasting influence on five great artists — Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama — through early memories, sensory experiences, and childhood trauma.
The Confession
Fifteen years after he won the DIFF audience award for Brotherhood, his suspenseful drama about a college fraternity hazing gone horribly wrong, director Will Canon returns to the scene of the crime with another Texas-set thriller. When a struggling musician moves back into her childhood home, she discovers a recording of her deceased father confessing to a grisly murder he claims to have committed to protect himself from an unknown evil force. As her young son exhibits increasingly unsettling behavior, and the woman uncovers sinister details about the history of her hometown, she becomes increasingly desperate in her attempts to stop the evil.
Eastern Western
Set in the 1880s, Biliana and Marina Grozdanova’s Eastern Western follows Igor, a recent immigrant and widower who struggles to raise his two-year old son Ivo in the mountains of the American West. The harshness of winter brings new challenges, testing Igor’s parenting and survival skills. Duncan, an acquaintance who brings occasional provisions, offers Igor the chance to join his family’s horse business and move into their ranch. Igor is attracted to the idea that will give him and his son a true place in American society, but he struggles to leave behind their first American home.
Free Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist jailed for decades after a disputed conviction, faces his twilight years as a new generation fights for his release from prison before it’s too late. Spoiler alert: Peltier was released shortly before Free Leonard Peltier premiered last January at the Sundance Film Festival, just in time for directors Jesse Short Bull (Lakota Nation vs. United States) and David France to include the good news in this outstanding Oscar-worthy documentary.
Luv Ya, Bum!
In the 1970s, Houston was booming… except for the city’s woeful pro football team. The Oilers gambled on hiring Bum Phillips, an unconventional East Texas coach known for cowboy hats, ostrich boots, and folksy one-liners. Ditching tradition and embracing a family-first atmosphere, Bum brought in “misfits” and “has-beens” to build a winner. At its peak, Bum’s Oilers blew up into the “Luv Ya Blue!” phenomenon, with Earl Campbell and the Oilers going to war with a Pittsburgh Steelers dynasty. Bum’s success on and off the field, his humanity, and his unique style left a legacy now carried forward by many, including his son and grandson, celebrated coaches Wade and Wes Phillips.
Night in West Texas
Forty years after a gay Apache man is framed for the brutal murder of a closeted Catholic priest, a police chief uncovers long-buried evidence that shakes up the small, oil-rich West Texas town that imprisoned him. Deborah S. Esquenazi (Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four) directed this true-crime documentary.
Remaining Native
Director Paige Bethmann’s acclaimed coming-of-age documentary is told from the perspective of Ku Stevens, a 17-year-old Native American runner, who is struggling to navigate his dream of becoming a collegiate athlete as the memory of his great grandfather’s escape from an Indian boarding school begins to connect past, present, and future. Ku is the solo runner at his high school with no coach. Living on the Yerington Paiute reservation in Northwest Nevada, he needs to be seen more by his dream school, the University of Oregon. As Ku trains, unreconciled emotions unearth the memory of his great-grandfather, Frank Quinn. At 8 years old, Frank ran 50 miles across the desert to escape an Indian boarding school. Frank’s story becomes interwoven with Ku’s journey to run a collegiate qualifying time. Will Ku outrun his history or will he learn to run in parallel with it to achieve his dreams?
The Salamander King
Austin Nichols’ indie comedy focuses on a group of Austinites who work and play at a municipal golf course — aka MUNY — that has come under threat of extinction due to the city’s rapid growth. The main characters are an increasingly endangered species in Austin — misfits and creative types who embrace the city’s mantra: Keep Austin Weird. The film also is a story about the universal desire to be part of a community and the need for shared public spaces. Despite their disparate backgrounds, the misfits at MUNY share a strong bond with one another and view the course as integral to the preservation of their “found family.”
Take It Away
Today, artists like Peso Pluma and Grupo Frontera dominate the airwaves. The meteoric rise of Tejano and Regional Mexican music arguably can be traced to one man: Johnny Canales, whose syndicated music variety show was appointment viewing in millions of households across North America, and launched the careers of legendary musicians like Selena, Ramon Ayala, and Intocable. Through deep archival footage and interviews, directors Adrian Alejandro Arredondo and Myrna Perez explore in their documentary the rise and fall not just of Canales, but the evolution of the genre itself.
Willie Nelson Presents: King of the Roadies
Willie Nelson and friends share stories of enigmatic Texan maverick Ben Dorcy (a.k.a. Lovey), an unsung hero who shaped American music history, pioneered an entire profession as the world’s first roadie, and defied time itself to keep the show on the road. Directed by Amy Lee Nelson, Willie’s daughter, and Trevor Doyle Nelson, his great-grandnephew, the documentary details the personal challenges Dorcy faced in his early years, and how he became the go-to man behind the scenes for many of country music’s biggest stars, including Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson, among others. Waylon Jennings even penned a song in his honor, “Ode to Ben,” reinforcing Dorcy’s impact on those he worked alongside.
