Houston Cinema Arts Festival celebrates independent film and Oscar buzz
The 11th annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival (HCAF) took place Nov. 14-18 at various venues throughout the city, including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Rice Cinema, The DeLuxe Theater, Blaffer Art Museum and more.
The festival celebrated various forms of film. Among these were documentaries like “Space Dogs,” “Fear No Gumbo” and “Ben DeSoto: For Art’s Sake” among others. Upcoming films “Waves,” “Marriage Story” and Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” held early premieres in Houston.
The festival also included multidisciplinary performances like Solange Knowles’ “When I Get Home” film and “Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes,” a documentary film introduced with a live jazz tribute concert by Da Camera.
On Thursday night, the Houston premiere of “Waves,” an upcoming film directed by Trey Edward Shults, was screened. The film received an overwhelmingly positive reaction from the audience and was followed by a discussion between Shults and Houston rapper Bun B, a member of the Houston Cinema Arts Society. After the discussion, there was an opening night party featuring DJ Flash Gordon Parks.
Friday night ended with the North American premiere of “Space Dogs” from Austrian directors Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter. Quiet, atmospheric and thought-provoking, “Space Dogs” documents stray dogs as they live on the streets of Moscow.
Using never-before-seen archived footage from Russia’s space-age, the film follows the selection of other space-faring dogs, the processes they underwent prior to launch and their triumphant and heavily celebrated returns to earth. Between the pitter-patter of stray paws on the streets of Moscow is footage of Soviet-era street dogs being prepared for spaceflight.
“We want people to really deeply think about animals and about themselves as humans and that relationship in a different way. Some told us that they felt like dogs for 90 minutes, which really means a lot to me because this is what we wanted to reach,” said Elsa Kremser, director of “Space Dogs,” in a Q&A with HCAF art director Jessica Green following the screening.
Saturday afternoon, Oscar-nominated director Kimberly Rivers Roberts screened her latest documentary film, “Fear No Gumbo.” The film shares the story of the fate of Louisiana’s Lower 9th Ward in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
“I want people to understand that at the end of the day we all come from different backgrounds but we are all people and when we understand each other we can come together and share each other’s gumbo,” Roberts said in a Q&A with Green. “That’s why the title is ‘Fear No Gumbo,’ to bridge the gap and stop the fear we all have together and share and make our lives and our communities the best.”
Rice University’s Moody Center for the Arts hosted “The Moon Shot Exhibition,” a walkthrough art exhibit featuring pieces inspired by the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Mixed media and virtual reality were featured in the nostalgia-filled exhibit. Notable pieces included works from Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.
Saturday evening, the annual Cinespace Awards were hosted at Rice Cinema. Cinespace is a film competition judged by the Houston Cinema Arts Society in collaboration with NASA. The competition invites filmmakers to use NASA’s film archives for inspiration or representation in their films to tell a story. Genres included documentaries, science fiction and even computer-generated animations about the great beyond.
Awards were presented for Best Documentary and Most Obscure Usage of Archived Footage, among others. Best Documentary was awarded to David Regos, director of “The Most Ideal Place,” which is the story of the communications station in Fresnedilla, Spain where radio signals were transmitted to Houston from the lunar lander as it touched down on the Sea of Tranquility. Most Obscure Usage of Archived Footage was awarded to director Juan Pablo Jaramillo for “NASA 1991 Youth Recruitment Reel.”
Concluding Saturday night was the Houston premiere of director Noah Baumbach’s upcoming film, “Marriage Story” starring Scarlett Johannsson and Adam Driver as they navigate divorce and the trauma that often comes with it. The film is receiving wide acclaim and plenty of Oscar buzz as it tours film festivals worldwide and will open nationally on Dec. 6.
Sunday afternoon featured “Around the World in a Day: Experimental Cinema Now,” a showcase of experimental short films from around the world, which was hosted at Rice Cinema. Most notably was “The Giverny Document,” directed by Ja’Tovia Gary. The film serves as a layered meditation on the safety and bodily autonomy of black women.
“The film is definitely about a confrontation or interrogation of power,” said Gary in a Q&A with curator Michael Sicinski. “Most of my work is. I’m thinking through these larger overarching conceptions of power whether it be state-sanctioned violence, or institutional power, what have you. Colonialism, the histories of violent extraction, and where do specifically black women fit into those equations.”
Later in the day, Da Camera began the screening of “Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes” with a live music tribute to Blue Note Records. The film explores the vision of the classic jazz record label with rare archival footage, interviews and more. The film starts Blue Note Records artists Herbie Hancock, Norah Jones, Don Was and more.
On Sunday evening, Rice Cinema screened “Ben DeSoto: For Art’s Sake,” a documentary of the life and career of Houston photographer of the underground punk scene, major touring acts, hip hop culture and current events in his over 30 years of photojournalism experience with the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post.
Following the film was a panel with directors Michael Witnes Zapada and Andrew Benavides, photographer Ben DeSoto, and Dianna Ray and George Reyes, members of the band Mydolls.
Monday, the festival concluded with screenings of multiple films, notably “Always in Season,” a documentary about the impact of America’s history of lynching on modern racial violence, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” a drama about a french countess who becomes attracted to the female artist commissioned to complete her wedding portrait, and “The Science of Fictions,” an Indonesian film about a man who witnesses the faking of the moon landing and suffers as a result.
The Houston Cinema Arts Festival will return in 2020. Find out more information about the Houston Cinema Arts Society at www.cinemahtx.org and consider viewing these films as they release to the public and in theaters this winter.
