Festival News
Texas film festival in Garland will spotlight Western-ish classics
The Last Picture Show
A film festival dedicated entirely to Texas films is coming this fall: Called "It Came From Texas Film Festival," it'll go down in Garland at the Plaza Theatre, 521 W. State St., celebrating films made either wholly or in part within the Lone Star State.
The fest will run for a weekend, kicking off on Friday, September 13 and continuing through Sunday, September 15. This will be the second edition, and is sponsored by the City of Garland and Garland Cultural Arts.
Festival director Kelly Kitchens says in a statement that the 2024 version will focus on films that lean into the Western genre.
"There’s no better place than Texas to pay homage to one of the foundational genres of cinema, the Western and all the variations of the Western outside Cowboys and Indians," Kitchens says.
They're featuring three Oscar-winning Texas films that she dubs "Western-adjacent": Tender Mercies (1983), The Last Picture Show (1971), and Giant (1956).
Other cornerstones of the festival will include:
Garland High School IB Short Films: Short films made in Texas by students enrolled in Garland High School’s Reel Owl Cinema (ROC) film program, a unique four-year high school narrative International Baccalaureate (IB) film program, which has been producing films at Garland High School since 2005.
The Mocky Horror Picture Show: Interactive comedy troupe will close out the fest with a live skewering of Rock Baby – Rock It, a fun 1957 film showcasing Texas' versions (or the Dollar Store equivalents) of Elvis, the Everly Brothers, and more. Mocky Horror comedians Liz Barksdale, Danny Gallagher, and Albie Robles will riff in the theater for a live audience with jokes, special edits and effects, and sketches. Timed prompts appear on the screen with instructions for the audience to do or say things at the right time so you can mock the movie with them. The comedians also provide props for the audience to use during the screening.
Tickets are now on sale on prekindle. An all-access pass is currently $55, and will go up to $65 on August 1.
The schedule is as follows:
Friday, September 13
- Horton Foote: The Road to Home. The 2020 documentary starring award-winning Texas writer Horton Foote, through his own eyes and voice at the end of his life. Director Anne Rapp will be in attendance.
- Tender Mercies. The 1983 film — directed by Bruce Beresford, written by Horton Foote, and starring Robert Duvall as a middle-aged country singer who gets a new wife, reaches out to his long-lost daughter, and tries to put his life back together — was filmed in Palmer, Waxahachie, and Arlington.
Saturday, September 14
- The Last Picture Show. Iconic 1971 film — directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd, about a group of high schoolers coming of age in a dying Texas town — was filmed in Archer City and Holliday, Texas.
- Children of Giant. The 2015 documentary directed by Hector Galan and filmed in Marfa, unearths emotions stirred up before, during, and after the month-long production of George Stevens's 1956 feature film, Giant.
- Student films from Garland High School’s ‘Reel Owl Cinema.’
- Giant. Filmed in Marfa and Valentine, this epic 1956 film about a cattle rancher and his family starred James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson, and was directed by George Stevens, who won an Oscar for Best Director.
Sunday, September 15
- Mocky Horror Picture Show, live riffing of Rock Baby - Rock It, a 1957 campy classic that follows Dallas teenagers as they resist attempts by underworld types to take over their rock 'n' roll club, directed by Murray Douglas Sporup and filmed in Dallas.
- Student films from Garland High School’s ‘Reel Owl Cinema.’
