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The Houston Cinema Arts Festival will expand to a full week this year, Nov. 12-19. In addition to its traditional emphasis on arts-related programming, the seventh annual event will focus on films related to space and NASA, as well as local and regional productions.

Music, again, will play a big role during the festival. “Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove,” the debut film by writer Joe Nick Patoski, looks at the music and life of legend Doug Sahm. When Sahm died in 1999, he left a remarkable body of work that effortlessly fused various types of music into a pan-Texas style of his own.

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What: The Houston Cinema Arts Society Official launch of the 7th annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival.

Where: The Alley Theatre’s Texas Room.

The scoop: Houston Cinema Arts Society executive director Trish Ridgon and festival artistic director Richard Herskowitz welcomed more than 250 film enthusiasts and revealed the full line-up of more than 60 films that will be screened November 12-19.

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As seen on VisitHouston.com

Texas native cinema stars headline the 2015 lineup of The Houston Cinema Arts Festival (HCAF15) taking place November 12-19, 2015.

Richard Linklater (Boyhood, Before Midnight, Before Sunset), an Oscar-nominated Houston native, will present I Dream Too Much, a film he produced with director Katie Cokinos, on November 15. The festival will also host the premiere of Janis: Little Girl Blue, a biopic of Texas rock icon Janis Joplin, with its Oscar-nominated documentary director Amy Berg (Deliver Us From Evil, West of Memphis). Houston rap legend Bun B will lead a post-film discussion of the film and the influence of Texans in music.

Thanks to a new partnership with NASA for the inaugural CineSpace short film competition, the Nov. 12-19 festival will also feature over 20 space-themed films and programs, highlighted by “CineSpace Day” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on Friday, Nov. 13. The top 16 films of 194 submissions will be shown along with five winners chosen by Richard Linklater and NASA. A cash prize of $26,000 will be awarded to the winners.

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The Houston Cinema Arts Festival will expand to a full week this year, Nov. 12-19. In addition to its traditional emphasis on arts-related programming, the seventh annual event will focus on films related to space and NASA, as well as local and regional productions.
Music, again, will play a big role during the festival. “Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove,” the debut film by writer Joe Nick Patoski, looks at the music and life of legend Doug Sahm. When Sahm died in 1999, he left a remarkable body of work that effortlessly fused various types of music into a pan-Texas style of his own.
Other music-centric films at the festival this year: a documentary about Bay City’s Earth-shaking family gospel group the Jones Family Singers; “Heart of a Dog,” about avant-garde musician Laurie Anderson and her beloved rat terrier, who died in 2011; a film about ’60s psychedelic rock in Cambodia, which will include a performance by two members of American/Cambodian band Dengue Fever; a documentary about pioneering American music ensemble the Carter Family; and “Janis: Little Girl Blue,” Amy Berg’s feature film about Port Arthur native Janis Joplin. “Little Girl Blue” will include an appearance by Berg and rapper Bun B, who is also from Port Arthur.

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Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the 2015 Houston Cinema Arts Festival.

The lineup, unveiled at a cocktail party at the Alley Theatre Tuesday night, has been expanded to eight days with 60 narrative and documentary films, up from 50 last year, and a wide array of live performances. The festival, which celebrates artists in the visual, performing and literary arts, runs from November 12 -19.

The iconic hip-hop duo Kid ‘n Play — Christopher “Kid” Reid and Christopher “Play” Martin — will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their cult classic House Party, with a screening at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on November 14, followed by an audience Q&A session. The pair will also perform the movie’s “rap battle” scene at Montrose-area cafe, Brasil.

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The 2015 Houston Cinema Arts Festival (HCAF) is shaping up to be out of this world.

In addition to showcasing two films with Oscar buzz, officials announced Thursday that the local film fest will feature an abundance of space-related programming with celebrity attendees, including Luke Wilson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Old School) and older brother Andrew Wilson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums).

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Luke Wilson and his brother Andrew Wilson will be in Houston next month to present “Satellite Beach,” their 2014 short film, at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, which runs Nov. 12-19. More on their film here.
The full festival lineup will be announced Oct. 20, but organizers revealed a focus on space-related programming this year that includes a 20th-anniversary screening of “Apollo 13” with screenwriters William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert attending.

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Two films with big Oscar potential are among the flicks that will take center stage at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, officials announced Thursday.

Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are expected to be up for top acting prizes for their roles in Carol. Director Todd Haynes’ adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel, The Price of Salt, follows two women from disparate backgrounds in an unexpected love affair in 1950s New York.

Mara won the Best Actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival but is expected to snare a nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category at the Academy Awards so as not to compete with Blanchett, who is likely to garner her sixth Oscar nomination.

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You would expect a fashionable set to turn out for Houston Cinema Arts Festival’s screening of “Dior and I,” which closed out the festival on Sunday. The documentary is by film maker Frédéric Tcheng and explores the fashion house of Christian Dior and Raf Simons’ first Haute Couture collection for the label.

After the film, fashion icon and philanthropist Lynn Wyatt talked intimately with Tcheng about the film and took questions from the audience. (I served as host for the night.)

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Three-time Oscar nominated director James Ivory would like to sell you a slightly-used gondola. The story behind why the acclaimed director of 33 films including A Room with a View, Remains of the Day, Howards End and Le divorce has an authentic Venetian gondola resting comfortably in his barn in upstate New York was just one of the tales he revealed during an evening at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston celebrating his work and achievements.

The 86 year-old Ivory, who as one audience member in the Brown Auditorium Friday night put it “is still in great shape” traveled to Houston to participate in the Houston Cinema Arts Festival and receive the The Levantine Cinema Arts Award, which every year during the Festival is given to a creative artist who stretches the “boundaries of cinematic expression throughout an illustrious career.”

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