The Dallas Film Society today announced the full schedule of film selections for the 11th edition of the Dallas International Film Festival. The Opening Weekend Celebration at the Dallas City Performance Hall (2520 Flora Street) on March 30-April 2, will be headlined by a special 50th Anniversary Gala presentation of the groundbreaking classic, BONNIE AND CLYDE. Centerpiece Gala presentations include the Sundance hits, Brett Haley’s THE HERO and Mark Palansky’s REMEMORY, and DIFF alum David Gordon Green will be the recipient of this year’s L.M. “Kit” Carson Maverick Award.
Among the 122 films (75 features, 47 shorts), representing 31 countries, are four films making world premieres, including Craig Elrod’s MUSTANG ISLAND, about a man’s attempt to woo his girlfriend back after a breakup on New Year’s Eve, and Russ Kendall’s documentary, MAN IN THE CAMO JACKET, about rock musician Mike Peters (of The Alarm), his rise to fame, battle with cancer, and inspiring climb back as he enlists some of the world's top musicians to help save the lives of cancer patients around the globe. The film includes music and interviews from some of the 80's most legendary artists including members of Squeeze, The Stray Cats, The Cult, The Fixx, and the English Beat. Previously announced as making their world premieres are Jameson Brooks’s BOMB CITY, and Micah Barber’s INTO THE WHO KNOWS!, and one film – Zack Taylor, Georg Petzoid, and Seth Smoot’s CASSETTE: A DOCUMENTARY MIXTAPE, making its North American premiere,.
Films in the Narrative Competition are: Cate Shortland’s BERLIN SYNDROME, Cheryl Nichols’s CORTEZ, Amman Abbasi’s DAYVEON, Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson’s HEARTSTONE, Wayne Roberts’s KATIE SAYS GOODBYE, Joshua Z Weinstein’s MENASHE, C.A. Gabriel and Renée Felice Smith’s THE RELATIONTRIP.
Films in the Documentary Feature Competition are: Madeleine Gavin’s CITY OF JOY, Luke Korem’s DEALT, Maya Zinshtein’s FOREVER PURE, Jonathan Olshefski’s QUEST, Jeff Malmberg, and Chris Shellen’s SPETTACOLO, Jennifer Brea’s UNREST, Cullen Hoback’s WHAT LIES UPSTREAM.
The recipients of the 2017 DIFF awards will receive MOVIE MAGIC Budgeting and Scheduling software bundles from Entertainment Partners.
Films in the Texas Competition (with the winner receiving a camera rental package valued at $30,000 courtesy of Panavision) are: Jason Headley’s A BAD IDEA GONE WRONG, Carlyn Hudson’s THE BIG SPOON, Jameson Brooks’s BOMB CITY, Karen Skloss’s THE HONOR FARM, Noël Wells’s MR. ROOSEVELT, Craig Elrod’s MUSTANG ISLAND, Sandra Adair’s THE SECRET LIFE OF LANCE LETSCHER.
Films eligible for the Studio Movie Grill Silver Heart Award (Presented by the Schultz Family and bestowed on an individual or film for their dedication to fighting injustices and/or creating social change for the improvement of humanity. The Studio Movie Grill Silver Heart Award winner receives a $5,000 cash prize courtesy of the Schultz Family) include: Matthew Heineman’s CITY OF GHOSTS, Madeleine Gavin’s CITY OF JOY, Peter Bratt’s DOLORES, Jennifer Brea’s UNREST, Cullen Hoback’s WHAT LIES UPSTREAM.
The Arthur E. Benjamin Foundation Audience Awards will be presented to: Best Narrative Feature, Best Documentary Feature, and Best Short Film.
“As the Dallas International Film Festival heads into our next decade, we sought to combine two things that we have always tried to do with our programming – provide Dallas film audiences with the best balance of new and exciting films available, and celebrate the films that made us all love going to movies in the first place,” said James Faust, Artistic Director of the Dallas Film Society. “As one of the largest film festivals in Texas, we feel a responsibility to offer a wide-spectrum of film choices – from big movie epics, to gritty and intimate indies, hard-hitting documentaries, world cinema, films showcasing local talent, films with family appeal, and genre fare. That’s a lot of different movie tastes and interests to satisfy, but we think we’ve pulled if off once again.”
The opening night gala selection of Arthur Penn’s BONNIE AND CLYDE will begin a festival-long salute to the films of 1967, a year marked as a groundbreaking and influential year for cinema. Films chosen to celebrate that year, include: Stanley Kramer’s GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER, with one of the film’s stars, Katharine Houghton, making a rare appearance to attend that screening, two beloved musicals – Joshua Logan’s CAMELOT, and David Swift’s HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING, presentations of Stuart Rosenberg’s COOL HAND LUKE, and Jim McBride’s DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY (written by Maverick Award namesake L.M. “Kit” Carson) at the Texas Theatre, and the Disney animated classic, Wolfgang Reitherman’s THE JUNGLE BOOK.
Haley returns to DIFF (his film I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS was the Opening Night selection in 2015) with the Sundance crowd pleaser, THE HERO, for the Centerpiece Screening on Saturday, April 1 at the Dallas City Performance Hall at 8:00PM. The film features Sam Elliot as an aging actor, whose career is still running on the fumes of his performance in a classic Western, when he receives a cancer diagnosis. However, the tragic implications of that news is buoyed by a surprising relationship that springs up with a much younger woman, played by Laura Prepon. The impressive cast also includes Krysten Ritter, Nick Offerman, and Katharine Ross.
Mark Palansky’s REMEMORY, another film that made its mark at Sundance, will be the second Centerpiece selection, screening on Thursday, April 6 at the Magnolia Theater (3699 McKinney Ave.) as DIFF returns to the West Village for screenings and red carpet presentations after a four-year absence. REMEMORY stars Peter Dinklage in a sci-fi psychological whodunit, as a man using a new technology to mine his memory for a traumatic incident in his past in order to come to terms with it. However, things become very complicated when the scientist who developed the machine turns up dead. The cast also includes Martin Donovan, Julia Ormand, and Anton Yelchin, in one of his final roles.
Filmmaker David Gordon Green will be the second recipient of the L.M. “Kit” Carson Maverick Award during the DFS Honors event presented by the Arthur E. Benjamin Foundation at The Highland Dallas (5300 E. Mockingbird Lane) on Friday, April 7. Green will also participate in a special “Conversation” at the SMU Meadows Museum on Saturday, April 8 at 1PM followed that evening by a screening of one of PINEAPPLE EXPRESS at the Texas Theatre. Respected as one of the leading writer/directors of his generation, the Texas-raised Green’s debut feature, GEORGE WASHINGTON (2000) won the Discovery Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and won the New York Film Critics’ Prize, and his second feature, ALL THE REAL GIRLS (2003), received a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Green has long been a favorite of DIFF with SNOW ANGELS (2004), JOE (2014), and MANGLEHORN (2015), all having screened in the past at DIFF.
DIFF continues its historical commitment to providing a forum for environmentally-focused filmmakers and documentaries by partnering with the upcoming EARTHxFilm festival to co-present two documentaries that have already made an impact on the film fest scene this year. Cullen Hoback’s WHAT LIES UPSTREAM, which was the Opening Night selection at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival, follows, in detective story fashion, drinking water contamination across the nation that indicts, not just the polluters of our water, but also the people in charge of regulating and investigating those polluters. Christina Clusiau and Saul Schwarz’s TROPHY, which screened at Sundance, takes an open-eyed and in-depth look into at big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation in the U.S. and Africa.
Among the many additional highlights in DIFF’s Schedule this year, include rousing audience “stand up and cheer” favorites like Geremy Jasper’s PATTI CAKE$, about a New Jersey girl with a startling talent who fights against the odds to achieve an unlikely quest for glory as a rapper, and Amanda Lipitz’s inspirational documentary, STEP, which documents the senior year of a girls' high-school step dance team in inner-city Baltimore.
A robust world cinema section is led by critical darling Xavier Dolan’s latest, IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD, Ringo Lam’s Chinese thriller SKY ON FIRE, where a security officer at a top-secret medical facility finds himself caught in an explosive battle following the theft of a groundbreaking medicine as he is the one person that can keep it from falling into the wrong hands, and the return of former DIFF award-winner Johnny Ma, with his moral political thriller OLD STONE, about a man, increasingly at war with China’s bureaucracy and legal manipulation of the common man.
DIFF also demonstrates its longstanding penchant for being the first place Dallas filmgoers can count on for true independent film discoveries and favorites with Amman Abbasi’s DAYVEON, about a rural Arkansas black teen’s attempts to find his place in his neighborhood following the death of his older brother, Eliza Hittman’s Sundance award- winner BEACH RATS, about a Brooklyn teenager exploring his confusing sexuality during an intense summer, Cheryl Nichols’s CORTEZ, about a charismatic, but erratic musician that tries to insert himself into the life of an old flame with disastrous results, Sarah Adina Smith’s previously announced BUSTER’S MAL HEART, and Justin Chon’s GOOK, about two Korean American brothers, who own a struggling shoe store and have an unlikely friendship with a street wise 11-year-old African American girl until the Rodney King verdict is read and their world is thrown into crisis.
Finally, genre film fans will get their fix via Midnight screenings of A.D. Calvo’s stylish and seductive SWEET, SWEET LONELY GIRL, where a young woman falls under the influence of another, sending her spiraling down a psychologically unstable and phantasmagoric path, and Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski’s THE VOID, which focuses on a small town police officer, who, along with the skeleton crew of a local hospital must face off against cloaked, cult-like figures surrounding the building, while discovering they may just be at gateway to immense evil.
Once again, the Dallas Film Society has teamed up with DART for their successful partnership DART to DIFF. Many DIFF activities and events take place in the heart of Dallas and the partnership with DART will provide quick and convenient transportation for all festival attendees. In addition, DFS has teamed with Uber for UBER to DIFF this year, as Uber has come onboard as the Exclusive Rideshare Partner for the 2017 Dallas International Film Festival. Download the Uber app and sign up with the promo code DIFF2017 to get $15 off your first ride! Sign up here: https://get.uber.com/go/DIFF2017. Online ticket sales will be available for Dallas Film Society members beginning Monday,
March 13 at DallasFilm.org, and will open to the public on Thursday, March 16. The physical Prekindle Box Office will open on Thursday, March 20.
2017 Dallas International Film Festival Official Selections:
OPENING NIGHT GALA
BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)
Director: Arthur Penn
Country: USA, Running Time: 101min
Bonnie Parker, a bored waitress falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, robbing cars and banks.
CENTERPIECE GALAS
THE HERO
Director: Brett Haley
Country: USA, Running Time: 93min
An ailing movie star comes to terms with his past and mortality. The cast includes Sam Elliot, Laura Prepon, Krysten Ritter, Nick Offerman, and Katharine Ross.
REMEMORY
Directory: Mark Palansky
Country: USA, Running Time: 113min
The widow of a wise professor stumbles upon one of his inventions that's able to record and play a person's memory.
NARRATIVE COMPETITION
BERLIN SYNDROME
Director: Cate Shortland
Country: Australia, Running Time: 116min
A passionate holiday romance leads to an obsessive relationship, when an Australian photojournalist wakes one morning in a Berlin apartment and is unable to leave.
CORTEZ
Director: Cheryl Nichols
Country: USA, Running Time: 99min
After a canceled tour, flailing musician Jesse Lirette seeks out an old flame in a small town in Northern New Mexico. When an arrogant attempt at inserting himself into her family fails, he must confront the mistakes of his past on his own.
DAYVEON
Director: Amman Abbasi
Country: USA, Running Time: 75min
Mourning the death of his older brother, 13-year-old Dayveon becomes drawn to the camaraderie of a local gang while spending his days roaming his rural Arkansas town.
HEARTSTONE
Director: Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson
Countries: Denmark, Iceland, Running Time: 129min
A remote fishing village in Iceland. Teenage boys Thor and Christian experience a turbulent summer as one tries to win the heart of a girl while the other discovers new feelings toward his best friend. When summer ends and the harsh nature of Iceland takes back its rights, it's time to leave the playground and face adulthood.
KATIE SAYS GOODBYE
Director: Wayne Roberts
Country: USA, Running Time: 88min
A kindhearted seventeen-year-old in the American Southwest turns to prostitution to fulfill her dream of a new life in San Francisco.
MENASHE
Director: Joshua Z Weinstein
Country: USA, Running Time: 82min
Within Brooklyn's ultra-orthodox Jewish community, a widower battles for custody of his son. A tender drama performed entirely in Yiddish, the film intimately explores the nature of faith and the price of parenthood.
THE RELATIONTRIP
Directors: C.A. Gabriel, Renée Felice Smith
Country: USA, Running Time: 90min
At an age when everyone around them is settling down and finding love, Beck and Liam are self-proclaimed loners. After bonding over their mutual disinterest in relationships, they decide to go away together on a 'friend' trip. And that's when things get weird. Really, surreally weird.
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
CITY OF JOY
Director: Madeleine Gavin
Countries: USA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Running Time: 74min
The film follows the first class of students at a remarkable leadership center in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a region often referred to as "the worst place in the world to be a woman." These women have been through unspeakable violence spurred on by a 20 year war driven by colonialism and greed. In the film, they band together with the three founders of this center: Dr. Denis Mukwege (2016 Nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize), radical playwright and activist Eve Ensler ("The Vagina Monologues") and human rights activist, Christine Schuler-Deschryver, to find a way to create meaning in their lives even when all that was meaningful to them has long been stripped away.
DEALT
Director: Luke Korem
Country: USA, Running Time: 85min
Sixty-two-year-old Richard Turner is renowned as one of the world’s greatest card magicians, yet he is completely blind. In this documentary, Richard traces his journey from his troubled childhood, when he began losing his vision, to present day as he relentlessly pursues perfection while struggling with the reality that his biggest weakness might also be his greatest strength.
FOREVER PURE
Director: Maya Zinshtein
Countries: USA, Israel, Russia, Running Time: 85min
The Beitar football club in Jerusalem deals with racist outrage from fans in 2012 after signing two Muslim players.
QUEST
Director: Jonathan Olshefski
Country: USA, Running Time: 90min
Filmed over a decade, 'Quest: the Fury and the Sound' was originally planned as a documentary portrait of the Rainey family and their home music studio, which serves as a special sanctuary within their North Philadelphia neighborhood. When a stray bullet wounds their youngest daughter, the film shows the family's strength in the face of adversity and their dedication to being a force for good in their community.
SPETTACOLO
Directors: Jeff Malmberg, Chris Shellen
Country: USA, Running Time: 91min
Once upon a time, villagers in a tiny hill town in Tuscany found a remarkable way to confront their issues – they turned their lives into a play.
UNREST
Director: Jennifer Brea
Country: USA, Running Time: 90min
When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it's "all in her head." Determined to live, she turns her camera on herself and her community, a hidden world of millions confined to their homes and bedrooms by ME, commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome.
WHAT LIES UPSTREAM
Director: Cullen Hoback
Country: USA, Running Time: 89min
In this detective story, filmmaker Cullen Hoback investigates the largest chemical drinking water contamination in a generation. But something is rotten in state and federal regulatory agencies, and through years of persistent examination, we learn the shocking truth about what’s really happening with drinking water in America.
TEXAS COMPETITION
A BAD IDEA GONE WRONG
Director: Jason Headley
Country: USA, Running Time: 85min
A BAD IDEA GONE WRONG is a comedy about two would-be thieves who accidentally arm the alarm system and have to break out of the house they just broke into. When they discover an unexpected house sitter, they suddenly have to deal with a hostage situation, double crosses, sexual tensions, and discoveries that make their difficult escape even more dubious.
THE BIG SPOON
Director: Carlyn Hudson
Country: USA, Running Time: 80min
An unromantic comedy about the perils of staying together when you should really be apart.
BOMB CITY – WORLD PREMIERE
Director: Jameson Brooks
Country: USA, Running Time: 93min
BOMB CITY is a gritty-drama, about the hatred and oppression of a group of punk revolutionaries in a conservative Texas town. Their ongoing battle with a rival clique leads to one of the most controversial hate crimes the U.S. has ever seen. Based on the true story of Brian Deneke.
THE HONOR FARM
Director: Karen Skloss
Country: USA, Running Time: 74min
On prom night, a group of kids wander deep into the woods and come back changed forever.
MR. ROOSEVELT
Director: Noël Wells
Country: USA
After a loved one falls ill, struggling comedian Emily Martin returns to her college town of Austin, Texas and must come to terms with her past while staying with her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend.
MUSTANG ISLAND
Director: Craig Elrod
Country: USA, Running Time: 86min
After his girlfriend dumps him at a New Years Eve party, Bill and his friends drive to an off-season beach town to win her back.
THE SECRET LIFE OF LANCE LETSCHER
Director: Sandra Adair
Country: USA, Running Time: 95min
The Secret Life of Lance Letscher is a deeply personal and psychological portrait of internationally known, and Austin based, collage artist Lance Letscher. Told through memories of trauma and triumph, the film provides a doorway into Letscher’s profound insights on creativity, the subconscious, work ethic and spirituality. Through his intricate artistic process, we witness the artist’s unwavering determination to stay in the moment— free of mind, thought and preconception. Featuring detailed images of more than a hundred of his collages, sculptures, and installations, viewers are offered a visual feast while gaining intimate access into Letscher’s methodical techniques and brilliant mind.
PREMIERE SERIES
BEACH RATS
Director: Eliza Hittman
Country: USA, Running Time: 95min
Frankie, an aimless teenager on the outer edges of Brooklyn, is having a miserable summer. With his father dying and his mother wanting him to find a girlfriend, Frankie escapes the bleakness of his home life by causing trouble with his delinquent friends and flirting with older men online. When his chatting and webcamming intensify, he finally starts hooking up with guys at a nearby cruising beach while simultaneously entering into a cautious relationship with a young woman. As Frankie struggles to reconcile his competing desires, his decisions leave him hurtling toward irreparable consequences.
BUSTER’S MAL HEART
Director: Sarah Adina Smith
Country: USA, Running Time: 96min
In this bold thriller spiked with dark humor, Rami Malek (Mr. Robot) is Buster, a family man whose chance encounter with a conspiracy-obsessed drifter leaves him on the run from the police and an impending event known as The Inversion.
FRANTZ
Director: François Ozon
Country: France/Germany, Running Time: 113min
A haunting tale of love and reconciliation begins in a small town in Germany in the immediate aftermath of World War I when a young woman mourning the death of her fiancé encounters a mysterious Frenchman laying flowers on her beloved’s grave.
THE LOST CITY OF Z
Director: James Gray
Country: USA, Running Time: 141min
A true-life drama, centering on British explorer Col. Percival Fawcett, who disappeared while searching for a mysterious city in the Amazon in the 1920s.
MINE
Directors: Fabio Resinaro, Fabio Guaglione
Countries: USA, Spain, Italy, Running Time: 107min
This action-packed military thriller stars Armie Hammer (FREE FIRE, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.) as a U.S. soldier who, stranded in the desert for 52 hours after a mission falls apart, must fight for survival against his enemies, the hostile environment, and the creeping psychological toll of his treacherous situation. Annabelle Wallis (ANNABELLE, THE MUMMY) and Tom Cullen (WEEKEND) co-star in this tense, explosive film from the producer of BURIED and THE CONJURING
PATTI CAKE$
Director: Geremy Jasper
Country: USA, Running Time: 108min
PATTI CAKE$ introduces Australian native Danielle Macdonald in a breakout role, as aspiring rapper Patricia Dombrowski, a.k.a. Killa P, a.k.a. Patti Cake$. Fighting an unlikely quest for glory in her downtrodden hometown in Jersey where her life is falling apart, Patti tries to reach the big time in the hip hop scene with original and affecting music. Cheered on by her grandmother (Cathy Moriarty) and only friends, Jheri (Siddharth Dhananjay) and Basterd (Mamoudou Athie), Patti also shoulders her mother's (Bridget Everett) heartaches and misfortunes.
THE PROMISE
Director: Terry George
Country: Spain, USA, Running Time: 133min
When Michael (Oscar Isaac), a brilliant medical student, meets Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), their shared Armenian heritage sparks an attraction that explodes into a romantic rivalry between Michael and Ana’s boyfriend Chris (Christian Bale), a famous American photojournalist dedicated to exposing political truth. As the Ottoman Empire crumbles into war-torn chaos, their conflicting passions must be deferred while they join forces to get their people to safety and survive themselves.
A QUIET PASSION
Director: Terence Davies
Countries: UK, Belgium, Running Time: 125min
Director Terence Davies details the wit, intellectual independence and pathos of Emily Dickinson (Cynthia Nixon), exquisitely evoking the manners and spiritual convictions of her time that she struggled with and transcended in her poetry.
STEP
Director: Amanda Lipitz
Country: USA, Running Time: 83min
STEP documents the senior year of a girls’ high-school step dance team against the background of inner-city Baltimore. As each one tries to become the first in their families to attend college, the girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in the troubled city.
TOMMY’S HONOUR
Director: Jason Connery
Countries: UK, USA, Running Time: 117min
In every generation, a torch passes from father to son. And that timeless dynamic is the beating heart of TOMMY’S HONOUR – an intimate, powerfully moving tale of the real-life founders of the modern game of golf.
DOCUMENTARY SHOWCASE
ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL
Director: Steve James
Country: USA, Running Time: 88min
ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL tells the incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The indictment and subsequent trial forces the Sung family to defend themselves – and their bank’s legacy in the Chinatown community – over the course of a five-year legal battle.
CITY OF GHOSTS
Director: Matthew Heineman
Country: USA, Running Time: 90min
A documentary that follows the efforts of "Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently," a handful of anonymous activists who banded together after their homeland was taken over by ISIS in 2014. With deeply personal access, this is the story of a brave group of citizen journalists as they face the realities of life undercover, on the run, and in exile, risking their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.
DINA
Directors: Dan Sickles, Antonio Santini
Country: USA, Running Time: 101min
An eccentric suburban woman and a Walmart door greeter navigate their evolving relationship in this unconventional love story.
DOLORES
Director: Peter Bratt
Country: USA, Running Time: 98min
Dolores Huerta bucks 1950s gender conventions by starting the country's first farm worker's union with fellow organizer Cesar Chavez. What starts out as a struggle for racial and labor justice, soon becomes a fight for gender equality within the same union she is eventually forced to leave. As she wrestles with raising 11 children, three marriages, and is nearly beaten to death by a San Francisco tactical police squad, Dolores emerges with a vision that connects her new found feminism with racial and class justice.
ELLA BRENNAN: COMMANDING THE TABLE
Director: Leslie Iwerks
Country: USA, Running Time: 96min
When 18-year old Ella Brennan went to work at her family’s bar on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the 1940’s, America had no idea what was about to hit the culinary world. While overcoming a lifetime of personal and family struggles, she persevered to not only raise the bar in the New Orleans culinary world, she launched the careers of Paul Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse, Tory McPhail, among others, created iconic dishes from scratch that have since become world famous, and built two of America’s most renown restaurants from the ground up; Brennan’s and Commander’s Palace. Through it all, Ella Brennan was driven by one goal: to bring true hospitality and the finest dining experience to The Big Easy.
IN LOCO PARENTIS
Directors: Neasa Ní Chianáin, David Rane
Countries: Ireland, Spain, Running Time: 100min
Long careers are drawing to a close for John and Amanda, who teach Latin, English, and guitar at a stately home-turned-school, where they are legends with a mantra: "Reading. 'Rithmetic. Rock 'n' roll!" But leaving is the hardest lesson.
TROPHY
Directors: Christina Clusiau, Saul Schwarz
Country: USA, Running Time: 108min
This in-depth look into the powerhouse industries of big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation in the U.S. and Africa unravels the complex consequences of treating animals as commodities.
WHOSE STREETS?
Directors: Sabaah Folayen, Damon Davis
Country: USA, Running Time: 103min
WHOSE STREETS? is an unflinching look at how the killing of 18-year-old Mike Brown inspired a community to fight back and sparked a global movement.
DEEP ELLUM SOUNDS
CASSETTE: A DOCUMENTARY MIXTAPE – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Directors: Zack Taylor, Georg Petzoid, Seth Smoot
Countries: USA, Germany, Netherlands, UK
Cassette inventor Lou Ottens digs through his past to figure out why the audiotape won't die. Rock veterans like Henry Rollins, Thurston Moore, and Ian MacKaye join a legion of young bands releasing music on tape to push Lou along on his journey to remember.
MAN IN THE CAMO JACKET – WORLD PREMIERE
Director: Russ Kendall
Countries: USA, Israel, Japan, Nepal, Peru, Tanzania, UK, Running Time: 80min
The story of iconic Welsh rock musician Mike Peters (of The Alarm), his rise to fame, battle with cancer, and inspiring climb back as he enlists some of the world's top musicians to help save the lives of cancer patients around the globe. Ultimately though, the life he saves may be his own.
SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY
Director: Matt Schrader
Country: USA, Running Time: 93min
SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY brings Hollywood's premiere composers together to give viewers a privileged look inside the musical challenges and creative secrecy of the world's most widely known music genre: the film score.
STRAD STYLE
Director: Stefan Avalos
Country: USA, Running Time: 104min
STRAD STYLE follows a backwoods dreamer from Ohio with an obsession for 'Stradivari' and all things violin, who, through the magic of social-media, convinces a famous European concert violinist that he can make a copy of the most famous and valuable violin in the world. Fighting time, poverty, and most of all – himself – Danny Houck puts everything on the line for one shot at glory.
WORLD CINEMA
CHEER UP
Director: Christy Garland
Countries: Finland, Canada, Running Time: 86min
CHEER UP takes us into the teenage lives of a team of losing cheerleaders in the Arctic Circle, Finland. They try their best to get better and look perfect doing it, while really, life just sucks. For Patricia, Aino and Miia, finding out who they are, where they belong and what family means is much more important than any trophy.
I AM NOT MADAME BOVARY
Director: Feng Xiaogang
Country: China, Running Time: 128min
Li Xuelian and her husband Qin Yuhe stage a fake divorce to secure a second apartment in the city reserved by the government for single people. Qin remarries six months later – as agreed – but to a different woman. Furious, Li files a lawsuit with the county court but loses the case. Refusing to accept the court's findings, Li appeals to the chief justice, the county chief, and even the mayor, but fails at every turn. After Qin publicly accuses Li of being a "promiscuous woman" because she was not a virgin on their wedding night, Li is driven back to the courts to redeem her reputation. Li makes her way from county to city, enduring one trial after another, until she decides to make her appeal in far-off Beijing.
IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD (Juste La Fin Du Monde)
Director: Xavier Dolan
Countries: Canada, France, Running Time: 95min
Louis, a terminally ill writer, returns home after a long absence to tell his family that he is dying.
LIKE CRAZY (La Pazza Gioia)
Director: Paolo Virzi
Country: Italy, France, Running Time: 118min
In a center for mentally disturbed women, Beatrice and Donatella become friends. During educational work outside the clinic, they take a chance to flee from custody, starting an adventurous trip that will disclose their past and change their lives.
LIPSTICK UNDER MY BURKHA
Director: Alankrita Shrivastava
Country: India, Running Time: 116min
In rural India, a burkha-clad college girl struggles with issues of cultural identity and her aspirations to become a pop singer. A young two-timing beautician seeks to escape the claustrophobia of her small town. An oppressed housewife and mother of three lives the alternate life of an enterprising saleswoman. A 55-year-old widow rediscovers her sexuality through a phone romance. Caught in a conservative society, these women set forth to break the mold, in search of a little freedom.
LOST IN PARIS (Paris Peds Nus)
Directors: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon
Countries: France, Belgium, Running Time: 84min
Fiona visits Paris for the first time to assist her myopic Aunt Martha. Catastrophes ensue, mainly involving Dom, a homeless man who has yet to have an emotion or thought he was afraid of expressing.
MAD WORLD (Yat Nim Mo Ming)
Director: Chun Wong
Country: Hong Kong, Running Time: 101min
An ex-stockbroker diagnosed with bipolar disorder struggles to reconcile with his estranged father and his perturbed ex-fiancée.
OLD STONE (Lao Shi)
Director: Johnny Ma
Countries: Canada, China, Running Time: 80min
A psychological thriller about a taxi driver battling bureaucracy and legal manipulation in China.
SKY ON FIRE (Chongtian Huo)
Director: Ringo Lam
Countries: China, Hong Kong, Running Time: 100min
In this driving, non-stop action thriller, the chief security officer at a top-secret medical facility (Daniel Wu, Into the Badlands) finds himself caught in an explosive battle when a young thief and his accomplices steal a groundbreaking curative medicine. After discovering the true origins of the medicine, the officer must decide whom he can trust to protect the cure from falling into the wrong hands and prevent an all-out war from bringing the city to its knees.
TUNNEL (Teoneol)
Director: Kim Seong-Hun
Country: South Korea, Running Time: 127min
When a tunnel collapses on Jung-soo, his ensuing rescue operation becomes the subject of widespread media coverage and frenzy. But days go by, nerves stretch thin, and Jung- soo must struggle for his life in the suffocating darkness alone.
LATINO SHOWCASE
CRAZY IN LOVE (Locos de Amor) Director: Frank Pérez-Garland
Country: Peru, Running Time: 111min
CRAZY IN LOVE tells the story of four cousins who have to face different situations life puts on their way: love, heartache and endless tragicomic adventures; all part of fun songs played by the same actors. Fragments of known songs, sung in comedy tone by this fun cast.
THE PRESENT ONES (Los Presentes)
Director: Alejandro Molina
Country: Mexico, Running Time: 90min
Ana, a former actress, gets the chance to reunite herself with Ophelia, a character she played years ago on the stage, when she met and fell for the man who is her husband now. However, at this point in her life, her marriage is facing a difficult time, tenuously kept together is their 6-year old son. By playing the character, and “becoming” Ophelia once again, and under stressful circumstances, Ana suffers a personality split which leads her to an extreme and life changing juncture, something she has never faced before.
SIZE DOES MATTER (El Tamaño sí Importa)
Director: Rafa Lara
Country: Mexico Running Time: 95min
A typical average Mexican woman away from the established standards of beauty, try to conquer his former boss, a handsome and charismatic socialite who is used to date actresses and models. A history of uneven and unpredictable love.
X500 (X Quinientos)
Director: Juan Andrés Arango Garcia
Countries: Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Running Time: 104min
Thousands of kilometers apart, three young migrants undergo mental, emotional, and physical transformations in order to survive the violence of their new worlds.
FAMILY FRIENDLY
44 PAGES
Director: Tony Shaff
Country: USA, Running Time: 97min
44 PAGES is a portrait of Highlights Magazine following the creation of the cultural phenomenon's 70th Anniversary issue, from the first editorial meeting to its arrival in homes, and introducing the quirky people who passionately produce the monthly publication for "the world's most important people,"…children. Along the way, a rich and tragic history is revealed, the state of childhood, technology, and education is explored, and the future of print media is questioned.
INTO THE WHO KNOWS! – WORLD PREMIERE
Director: Micah Barber
Country: USA, Running Time: 72min
Ten-year old Thomas has a best friend: Felix the Fox. But his parents want him to make “real friends”, so they send him to summer camp. However, he hates it, so he and Felix make a midnight escape. Deep in the forest of the Who Knows they pursue a mythical being called the Totem, and decide to catch it.
THE JUNGLE BOOK (1967)
Director: Wolfgang Reitherman
Country: USA, Running Time: 78min
Bagheera the Panther and Baloo the Bear have a difficult time trying to convince a boy to leave the jungle for human civilization.
PETE’S DRAGON (2016)
Director: David Lowery
Country: USA, Running Time: 103min
The adventures of an orphaned boy named Pete and his best friend Elliot, who just so happens to be a dragon.
MIDNIGHT SPECIALS
SWEET, SWEET LONELY GIRL
Director: A.D. Calvo
Country: USA, Running Time: 76min
Soon after moving in with her aging aunt Dora, Adele meets Beth, seductive and mysterious, who tests the limits of Adele's moral ground and sends her spiraling down a psychologically unstable and phantasmagoric path.
THE VOID
Directors: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski
Country: Canada, Running Time: 90min
When police officer Carter (Aaron Poole) discovers a blood-soaked man limping down a deserted road, he rushes him to a local hospital with a barebones, night shift staff. As cloaked, cult-like figures surround the building, the patients and staff inside start to turn ravenously insane. Trying to protect the survivors, Carter leads them into the depths of the hospital where they discover a gateway to immense evil.
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
GOOK
Director: Justin Chon
Country: USA, Running Tine: 94min
Eli and Daniel, two Korean American brothers, own a struggling shoe store and have an unlikely friendship with Kamilla, a street wise 11 year old African American girl. Kamilla ditches school, Eli stresses about the store, and Daniel tries to have a good time. It's just another typical day at the store until the Rodney King verdict is read and riots break. With the chaos moving towards them, the trio is forced to defend the store while contemplating the future of their own personal dreams and the true meaning of family.
THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
Director: George Cukor
Country: USA, Running Time: 112min
When a rich woman's ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (2008)
Director: David Gordon Green
Country: USA, Running Time: 111min
A process server and his marijuana dealer wind up on the run from hit men and a corrupt police officer after he witnesses his dealer's boss murder a competitor while trying to serve papers on him.
THE SPEARHEAD EFFECT
Directors: Brandon Moore, Caleb Smith
Country: USA, Running Time: 88min
After a journalist exposes widespread police corruption, he soon finds himself a target of the violent vigilantes he unwittingly inspired.
SALUTE TO THE FILMS OF 1967
CAMELOT (1967)
Director: Joshua Logan
Country: USA, Running Time: 179min
The story of the marriage of England's King Arthur to Guinevere. The plot of illegitimate Mordred to gain the throne and Guinevere's growing attachment to Sir Lancelot, threaten to topple Arthur and destroy his "round table" of knights.
COOL HAND LUKE (1967)
Director: Stuart Rosenberg
Country: USA, Running Time: 126min
A man refuses to conform to life in a rural prison.
DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY (1967)
Director: Jim McBride
Country: USA, Running Time: 74min
Young filmmaker decides to make a movie of his life.
GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (1967)
Director: Stanley Kramer
Country: USA, Running Time: 108min
A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter introduces them to her African American fiancé.
HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (1967)
Director: David Swift
Country: USA, Running Time: 121min
Armed with the titular manual, an ambitious window washer seeks to climb the corporate ladder.
SHORT FILMS (IN COMPETITION)
AUDIBLE STATIC
Director: Sai Selvarajan
Country: USA, Running Time: 11min
BAYARD & ME
Director: Matt Wolf
Country: USA, Running Time: 16min
BILL’S RECORDS
Director: Chuck Przbyl
Country: USA, Running Time: 10min
BLACK HOLES
Directors: David Nicolas, Laurent Nicolas
Countries: USA, France, Running Time: 13min
THE CHOP
Director: Lewis Rose
Country: UK, Running Time: 16min
CLOWNS
Director: Dana O’Keefe
Country: USA, Running Time: 13min
COLLECTION
Director: Adam Roffman
Country: USA, Running Time: 12min
COMMODITY CITY
Director: Jessica Kingdon
Countries: USA, China, Running Time: 11min
DEAR MR. SHAKESPEARE
Director: Shola Amoo
Country: UK, Running Time: 6min
DEATH METAL
Director: Chris McInroy
Country: USA, Running Time: 4min
DECORADO
Director: Alberto Vázquez
Country: Spain, Running Time: 11min
THE DIVER
Director: Esteban Arrangoiz
Country: Mexico, Running Time: 16min
DO NO HARM
Director: Hamish Mortland
Country: New Zealand, Running Time: 12min
EMMA
Director: Martin Edralin
Country: Canada, Running Time: 13min
END OF EARTH
Director: Caleb Michael Johnson Country: USA, Running Time: 6min
GUT HACK
Directors: Kate Mclean, Mario Furloni Country: USA, Running Time: 13min
HAIRAT
Director: Jessica Beshir
Country: USA, Running Time: 6min
HOW FAR SHE WENT
Director: Ugla Hauksdottir
Country: USA, Running Time: 13min
I KNOW YOU FROM SOMEWHERE
Director: Andrew Fitzgerald
Country: USA, Running Time: 15min
IRREGULARS
Director: Fabio Palmieri
Country: Italy, Running Time: 9min
LEGAL SMUGGLING WITH CHRISTINE CHOY
Directors: Lewie Kloster, Noah Kloster
Country: USA, Running Time: 4min
LILY
Director: Mimi Jeffries
Country: USA, Running Time: 11min
NO OTHER WAY TO SAY IT
Director: Tim Mason
Country: USA, Running Time: 7min
PET FRIENDLY
Director: Catherine Licata
Country: USA, Running Time: 15min
PROJECT X
Directors: Laura Poitras, Henrik Moltke
Country: USA, Running Time: 11min
PROXY
Director: Eric Schuman
Country: USA, Running Time: 14min
THE ROBBERY
Director: Jim Cummings
Country: USA, Running Time: 10min
SPRING
Director: Laurel Parmet
Country: USA, Running Time: 7min
SUNSHINE AND RAIN
Director: Vishnu Vallabhaneni
Country: USA, Running Time: 12min
THRUSH
Director: Christopher LaMarca
Country: USA, Running Time: 6min
WELL SPOKEN
Director: James Johnston
Country: USA, Running Time: 5min
WHAT HAPPENED TO HER
Director: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
Country: USA, Running Time: 15min
WHILE I WAS GONE
Director: Daniel Pfeffer
Country: USA, Running Time: 15min
ANIMATED SHORT FILMS (IN COMPETITION) – SPONSORED BY REEL FX
THE BALD FUTURE
Director: Paul Cabon
Country: France, Running Time: 5min
CATHERINE
Director: Britt Raes
Country: Belgium, Running Time: 12min
HOW’S YOUR PROSTATE?
Directors: Jeanne Paturie, Cécile Pousset
Country: France, Running Time: 4min
I AM HERE
Director: Eion Duffy
Country: Canada, Running Time: 6min
MR. MADILA
Director: Rory Waudby-Tolley
Country: UK, Running Time: 9min
NIGHTHAWK
Director: Špela Čadež
Countries: Slovenia, Croatia, Running Time: 9min
THE NOISE OF LICKING
Director: Nadja Andrasev
Country: Hungary, Running Time: 9min
SERVICE
Director: Josh Shaffner
Country: USA, Running Time: 6min
SUMMER CAMP ISLAND
Director: Julia Pott
Country: USA, Running Time: 9min
TOUGH
Director: Jennifer Zheng
Country: UK, Running Time: 5min
VICTOR & ISOLINA
Director: William D. Cabellero
Country: USA, Running Time: 6min
SHORTS BEFORE FEATURES
DIVIDED TOGETHER AGAIN
Director: Christian Vasque
Country: USA
THE FUNCTION OF MUSIC
Director: Mac Premo
Country: USA
