By Barrett White
With cinemas across the world closed for the foreseeable future, I wasn’t sure we would get a Houston Cinema Arts Festival (HCAF) in 2020. Thankfully for us, the staff members of the longstanding Houston arts institution have proven themselves flexible, offering 2020 solutions to 2020 problems. This year’s festival, which runs November 12–22, will take place virtually and in a drive-in format at the Moonstruck, Show Boat, and Houston Ballet drive-in theatres, creating a pandemic-friendly cinema experience.
Per the HCAF homepage, this year’s run of show features “over 40 documentary and narrative films, short film blocks, Q&As, dance performances, DJ sets, and workshops. This year’s theme, Urbana, plays off the globally popular Spanish-language music genre música urbana, and HCAF 2020 will include tributes to Selena and DJ Screw in honor of the 25th and 20th anniversaries of their untimely passings.”
Michael Robinson, marketing and communications manager for HCAF, says the festival intentionally went all-in on including diverse works from around the globe, noting that the importance of representation cannot be understated for a festival of this caliber in a city like Houston. “We have a Nigerian film, Eyimofe. Houston has such a huge Nigerian population, but we’ve never presented a Nigerian film before—that’s crazy [that we haven’t].”
Photo courtesy Houston Cinema Arts.
The 40 films presented this year reflect Houston’s diversity—not just by race or ethnicity, but by gender identity and sexual orientation, too (as well as the space where all of these identities intersect).
In particular, Robinson raves about Ammonite, which explores the relationship between paleontologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) and geologist Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan) in 19th century England (Robinson was elated to see that a popular Kate Winslet Facebook fan page promo’d the HCAF screening of the film).
Photo by Agatha A. Nitecka/RÅN studio.
Pier Kids offers an atmosphere reminiscent of Paris is Burning if you extract ballroom culture from the film and examine the day-to-day lives of the community. Filmed on New York City’s Chelsea Piers in the early- to mid-2000s, the film acknowledges the gray areas of existence where acceptance of the trans experience is just out of reach, and alternatively where it is righteously celebrated. Three-dimensional depictions of the lives of the “pier kids”—mainly our heroine, Krystal—highlight police brutality, rapturous chosen families, and the pain inflicted by white gays refusing to see and honor their transgender siblings. The film doesn’t aim to be hopeful in its presentation nor off-putting in the end; it is an honest glimpse into the lives of a community.
The rest of HCAF’s lineup doesn’t disappoint, either: The 24th (the timely true story of the all-Black Twenty-Fourth United States Infantry Regiment, and the Houston Riot of 1917), Cured (a documentary about the gay activists who commandeered the 1973 psychology conference to get homosexuality taken out of the DSM), Smooth Talk (the 1985 breakout performance by gay icon Laura Dern, loosely based on Joyce Carol Oates’ celebrated short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”), Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful (a documentary about the iconic and controversial photographer), Lourdes Portillo’s Selena Films (two short documentaries by lesbian filmmaker Lourdes Portillo on the legacy of the iconic Tejano star), Take Me to the Water (a pre-recorded dance performance by Houston-based choreographer Harrison Guy and the Urban Souls dance troupe, recorded in Houston’s Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern with a talkback with Guy afterward), Goodbye Rebecca & Eileen (an autobiographical short film about the director’s experience going through medical transition as told with puppets and animation), and Friday I’m in Love: A Night at Numbers (a 10-minute extended clip of the long-awaited, work-in-progress documentary about Numbers Nightclub, followed by a live DJ set by Stephanie Saint Sanchez).
“It’s like Netflix,” Robinson jokes about this year’s festival. Rather than attending films at the Rice University Media Center and other packed venues across town, this year attendees have the option to make a night of it at one of several drive-in theatres around Houston, or view selected films via online streaming.
Passes, which normally run $100, have been reduced to just $50 this year—the equivalent of just five tickets at a typical movie theatre, but with so many more films at viewers’ disposal. The pass is good for the entire online catalogue. Viewing a film at one of the drive-in theatres will run a separate charge of $30 per car upon arrival at the theatre—bring your friends and split the cost!
Some events will even be presented free of charge, such as Friday I’m in Love: A Night at Numbers along with the accompanying DJ set, as well as both the DJ Screw and Selena presentations.
At such an affordable price for such a thoughtfully curated festival, we can’t think of anything better to do this month.
To purchase passes for digital screenings, click here. Some films will only be available for streaming or drive-in. Please visit the HCAF homepage for more information including scheduling, free presentations, and film formats.
