Film Fest News

Dallas Int'l Film Festival 2025 will debut Oscar-contender flicks

King of the Roadies Ben Dorcy

Piper Ferguson

The lineup has been revealed for the 19th edition of the annual Dallas International Film Festival, taking place April 25-May 1 with more than 120 films, Q&A sessions, filmmaker and actor panels, nightly DIFF Red Carpets, and special events.

Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas Victory Park, located at 2365 Victory Park Ln., will serve as the host venue. Additional screenings and events will be held in the AT&T Discovery District, the Harwood District, the Texas Theatre, and Virgin Hotels Dallas, which returns for the third year as the Premier Sponsor of the Festival.

The Festival comes this year with extra cachet as it was named in October as an Oscar-Qualifying Festival by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This increases the festival's visibility as well as its appeal for filmmakers who are angling to earn a nomination for an Academy Award. DIFF is one of only 59 film festivals in the U.S. on that list.

According to DIFF Artistic Director James Faust, highlights include the world premiere of Happy As Larry, whose screenplay was a semifinalist in the festival's screenwriting competition in 2024; and a music and film panel with Abraham Alexander, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Sing Sing, which played at DIFF in 2024.

Among the lineup of feature films for DIFF 2025 so far are these world premieres:

A PORTRAIT OF A POSTMAN (Documentary) (USA) Director: Chris Charles Scott
True story of Kermit Oliver, a reclusive genius who spent decades working the graveyard shift at a Texas post office — while secretly creating masterpieces that would hang in the Smithsonian and designing million-dollar scarves for Hermès.

THE CONFESSION (Narrative Feature) (USA) Director: Will A Canon
Set in rural Texas, a struggling musician moves back into her childhood home and discovers a disturbing family secret that threatens to unravel her entire life.

DIY: THE RISE AND FALL AND RISE OF PUNK (Documentary) (USA) Director: Joel Cecilio Herrera
DIY is an extrospective dissection of Pop-Punk; from the SoCal garages of the 80’s to the enduring impact the genre has had on music, fashion, and culture.

DUE WEST (Narrative Feature) (USA) Director: Evan Miller
A small-town woman in need of medical care in West Texas is forced to break the law.

HAPPY AS LARRY (Narrative Feature) (United Kingdom) Director: Hugo Andre
Unsatisfied with life after years of writing novels far more interesting than his own life, Larry decides to go on one last adventure in the Isle of Skye before his scheduled demise.

KINTSUGI DREAMS: THE UNMUKT CHAND STORY (Documentary) (India) Director: Raghav Khanna
The film follows Unmukt’s journey from India to the United States as he tackles issues of immigration, patriotism and identity while trying to fulfill his childhood dream of playing international cricket.

MATTER OF TIME (Narrative Feature) (USA) Director: Jeremy Snead
Charlie Fleck, a 29-year-old aspiring videogame designer, is given the opportunity of a lifetime with a time-stopping device given to him by his friend, an eccentric toy shop owner, Gibbs.

NIGHT IN WEST TEXAS (Documentary) (USA) Director: Deborah S. Esquenazi
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.

THE OTHER (Narrative Feature) (USA) Director: Paul Etheredge
After years of struggling with infertility, a Caucasian couple, Daniel and Robin, become foster parents to Kathelia (8), a mute, African American orphan, with the hope of becoming a permanent family. The challenges begin immediately.

THE SALAMANDER KING (Narrative Feature) (USA) Director: Austin Nichols
Indie comedy focuses on a group of Austinites who work and play at a municipal golf course that’s come under threat of extinction due to the city’s rapid growth.

TAKE IT AWAY (Documentary) (USA) Director: Adrian Alejandro Arredondo
The meteoric rise of Tejano and Regional Mexican music can arguably be traced to one man: Johnny Canales, whose syndicated music variety show launched the careers of legendary musicians like Selena, Ramon Ayala, and Intocable.

WILLIE NELSON PRESENTS: KING OF THE ROADIES (Documentary) (USA) Director: Amy Lee Nelson
Nelson and friends share stories of the enigmatic Texan, Ben Dorcy (aka Lovey), an unsung hero who shaped American music history, pioneered an entire profession as the world's first roadie, and rivaled time itself to keep the show on the road.

The festival will also feature live screenplay table reads, awards, and other events and activations where filmmakers, screenwriters, film industry leaders, celebrities, sponsors, and audiences come together to experience and discuss film. Films are curated from submissions received by filmmakers worldwide, across Texas, and the U.S., and include narrative features, documentaries, and short films of all genres from studios and independent filmmakers.

Grand Jury Prizes for DIFF 2025 will be awarded for Best Texas Short Film, Best Texas Feature, Best Documentary Short Film, Best Documentary Feature, Best International Feature, Best International Short Film, Best Narrative Feature, Best Animated Short Film, and Best Student Film within the Shorts Competition. Additionally, Audience Awards will be given for Best Documentary Feature, Best Narrative Feature, and Best Short Film. There will also be a Dallas County Historical Commission Prize for Best Historical Film.

Oscar Qualifying short film awards at the Dallas International Film Festival are: Grand Jury Prize - Best Animated Short Film; Grand Jury Prize - Best Documentary Short Film; and Grand Jury Prize - Best Narrative Short Film. Films that win qualified awards between October 1, 2024, and September 30, 2025, may be qualified to enter the 98th Academy Awards, provided that the films meet all the requirements set forth in the official rules for that season.

Passes for the Dallas International Film Festival are on sale at dallasfilm.org/diff/passes. Tickets will be available to the general public on April 7.

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Movie Review

Film sequel Avatar: Fire and Ash is a technical and visual feast

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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