OPENING NIGHT FILM
8:30 PM
Thursday, November 10 Downtown Cowtown
Butcher's Crossing | USA | Western | 105 min
Presented by Higginbotham
TEXAS PREMIERE
A frontier epic about an Ivy League drop-out as he travels to the Colorado wilderness, where he joins a team of buffalo hunters on a journey that puts his life and sanity at risk. Based on the highly acclaimed novel by John Williams.
Producer Molly Conners and actor Xander Berkeley will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
DIRECTOR
SCRIPT
Gabe Polsky, Liam Satre-Meloy, John Williams
CAST
Nicolas Cage, Rachel Keller, Xander Berkeley, Fred Hechinger
COMPETITION NARRATIVE FEATURE FILMS
7:45 PM
Saturday, November 12
Downtown Cowtown
Freedom’s Path | USA | Drama | 125 min
Presented by Fort Worth Camera
TEXAS PREMIERE
'GLORY' meets 'DANCES WITH WOLVES' When a soldier deserts from battle, he soon discovers the true cost of war through a young heroic black man, who teaches him the real meaning of Freedom. This unique friendship is forged between a soldier and runaway slave, centering in and around the Underground Railroad.
Writer/director Brett Smith will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
12:45 PM
Friday, November 11
Cowboy Channel Studio
Little Jar | USA | Comedy | 90 min
When a misanthrope's dream of isolation is realized, she learns the true value of connection when she befriends a dead mouse.
Writer/director Dominic López and actor/screenwriter Kelsey Gunn will be in attendance for Q&A following the screening.
DIRECTOR
SCRIPT
CAST
6:00 PM
Friday, November 11
Downtown Cowtown
Oliver & the Pool | Mexico | Dramedy | 100 min
Presented by Fort Worth Camera
Oliverio sets the urn that contains his father’s ashes on the table next to the poolside chaise lounge. He grabs his phone and types in a word: aneurism. Oliverio’s father died during a family dinner, just after his parents announced that they were getting divorced. His mother already had a new man in her life. Oliverio, a 13-year-old only child, installs himself on the chaise lounge and decides that he will stay right there. From that very spot, he continues his life – mourning, observing, learning to forgive, and falling in love.
Writer/director Arcadi Palerm-Artis will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
3:15 PM
Friday, November 11
Downtown Cowtown
The Better Part | USA | Drama | 108 min
Presented by Dallas Film & Creative Industries
WORLD PREMIERE
Five estranged friends (and a plus one) are forced to reunite for a remote weekend on a Texas ranch when the Last Will & Testament of a beloved high school teacher outlines specific instructions for the scattering of his ashes.
Writer/director Mollie Mulvey and producer Meryl Thomas will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
5:15 PM
Saturday, November 12
Downtown Cowtown
White Trash | Canada | Drama | 125 min
WORLD PREMIERE
In this violent crime thriller set in the frozen north, two grizzled families vow to kill each other after the death of a young child
Director Adrian Langley and writer/actor Doug Phillips will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
COMPETITION DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILMS
4:00 PM
Thursday, November 10
Downtown Cowtown
Anonymous Sister | USA | 93 min
TEXAS PREMIERE
Over the course of three decades, Jamie uses the camera to document life. When her loved ones succumb to unexplained illness she turns to the camera for refuge and ends up with a firsthand account of what will become the worst man-made epidemic in United States history. Anonymous Sister is a personal exposé of one family’s fall into opioid addiction, offering a poignant and timely study of what it means to suffer, to survive, to celebrate life, in all of its beauty and pain.
8:00 PM
Saturday, November 12
Cowboy Channel Studio
Exposure | USA | 88 min
As the polar ice cap melts, reaching the North Pole has become increasingly dangerous. Yet an unlikely expedition of women - including a mirthful Muslim chaplain, a shy French scientist, a defiant Qatari princess, and 8 others - have set an audacious goal of skiing to the pole. Exposure follows the team as they train over 2 years, and finally reach the high Arctic, where they navigate open leads of water, polar bear threats, and -40 degree temperatures in an extraordinary story of resilience and global citizenry.
Writer/director Holly Morris and producer Nancy Sanders will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
12:45 PM
Friday, November 11
Downtown Cowtown
Oklahoma Breakdown | USA | 92 min
Presented by Fort Worth Camera
TEXAS PREMIERE
Mike Hosty is a comedic one-man band legend who can do things on stage that few entertainers in the world, if any, could pull off in a live setting. A cover version of his song "Oklahoma Breakdown" reached #1 in a genre that few associate him with. This documentary explores why a legend of the underground didn't chase the limelight when he could have been a millionaire.
Writer/director Christopher Charles Fitzpatrick will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
DIRECTOR
Christopher Charles Fitzpatrick
12:30 PM
Saturday, November 12
Downtown Cowtown
Song of the Cicada | USA | 70 min
A decade in the making, this documentary chronicles the musings and lifestyle of an eccentric mortician with an attraction to the forbidden living in the coastal town of Galveston, Texas.
Writer/director Robert Weiss and producer Lewis Parry will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
DIRECTOR
Aaron Weiss, Robert Weiss
SCRIPT
Robert Weiss
CAST
Dale Carter
CINE-MÁS FEATURE RETROSPECTIVE
6:30 PM
Saturday, November 12
Artes de la Rosa Center
Volver | Spain | Dramedy | 122 min
Presented by Sony Pictures Classics
After her death, a mother returns to her hometown in order to fix the situations she couldn't resolve during her life.
This year, Sony Pictures Classics celebrates 30 years as a distributor of independent films. Co-founded in 1992 by co-presidents Tom Bernard and Michael Barker along with Marcie Bloom, SPC has released the finest independent films of the past three decades and amassed a library of nearly 500 titles, which have earned 158 Academy Award nominations and 37 wins, in addition to many other accolades and guild nods. The distributor has worked with world-class filmmakers from around the globe (several from the earliest stages of their careers), including Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino, Mike Leigh, Sally Potter, Zhang Yimou, Susanne Bier, Jonathan Demme, Sally Potter, R. W. Fassbinder, Michael Haneke, Denis Villeneuve, Maren Ade, Ang Lee, Ingmar Bergman, Agnes Varda, Chloé Zhao, and many more.
SHOWCASE FEATURE FILMS
3:15 PM
Saturday, November 12
Cowboy Channel Studio
Presented by Telefilm Canada, Canadian Consulate General, Fort Worth Film Commission
John Ware Reclaimed follows filmmaker Cheryl Foggo on her quest to re-examine the mythology surrounding John Ware, the Black cowboy who settled in Alberta, Canada, before the turn of the 20th century. Foggo’s research uncovers who this iconic figure might have been, and what his legacy means in terms of anti-Black racism, both past and present.
John Ware Reclaimed | Canada | Documentary | 71 min
8:45 PM
Friday, November 11
Downtown Cowtown
Living | UK | Drama | 102 min
Presented by Sony Pictures Classics
TEXAS PREMIERE
LIVING is the story of an ordinary man, reduced by years of oppressive office routine to a shadow existence, who at the eleventh hour makes a supreme effort to turn his dull life into something wonderful.
2:45 PM
Saturday, November 12
Downtown Cowtown
Show Business Is My Life (But I Can't Prove It) USA | Documentary | 93 min
Presented by Red Productions
Showbusiness is My Life follows comedian Gary Mule Deer and his
60-year career making people laugh.
Star Gary Mule Deer and director G.B. Shannon will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
7:00 PM
Wednesday, November 9
TCU - 141 Moudy North Building
Free parking after 4 pm in the northeast parking lot corner of University Drive and Cantey Street, across from UCC church.
Theaters of War | USA | Documentary | 88 min
Presented by TCU Bob Schieffer College of Communication
TEXAS PREMIERE
If you've seen Top Gun or Transformers, you may have wondered: Does all of that military machinery on screen come with strings attached? Does the military actually get a crack at the script? With the release of a vast new trove of internal government documents, the answers have come into sharp focus: the US military has exercised editorial control over thousands of films and television programs. Propelled into a field trip across America, media professor Roger Stahl engages an array of other researchers, bewildered veterans, PR insiders, and industry producers willing to talk. In unsettling detail, he discovers how the military and CIA have pushed official narratives while systematically scrubbing scripts of war crimes, corruption, racism, sexual assault, coups, assassinations, and torture. From The Longest Day to Lone Survivor, Iron Man to Iron Chef, and James Bond to Jack Ryan, the deliberate creation of this other "cinematic universe" is one of the great PR coups of our time. As these activities gain new public scrutiny, new questions arise: How have they managed to fly under the radar for so long? And where do we go from here?
Writer/director Roger Stahl will be in attendance for a Q&A following
the screening.
10:30 AM
Saturday, November 12
National Hall
The Birth & History of Western Swing
USA | Documentary | 74 min
Presented by Cowtown Birthplace of Western Swing Festival
The quintessential story of America’s most joyous dance music, western swing got its start “where the west begins” in a ramshackle dancehall in Fort Worth, Texas during the depths of the Great Depression. It evolved with a spongelike ability to absorb a myriad of musical styles of black, white, rural and urban influences and transcend multiple ethnic boundaries to create an intoxicating musical gumbo. This landmark film traces its origins, development and legacy utilizing original and contemporary voices.
Writer/director Mike Markwardt will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
DIRECTOR
Mike Markwardt
SCRIPT
Mark Nobles, Mike Markwardt, Cary Ginell, Robert Huston
CAST
Vince Gill, Barry Corbin, Ray Benson
6:30 PM
Thursday, November 10
Downtown Cowtown
USA | Documentary | 62 min
Presented by Blackland Distillery
In 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, a struggling prep school in Fort Worth, TX recruited a battle-scarred Marine, Lt. Col. R.C. "Rocky" Rosacker to save the school and its moribund athletic program. In their own words, this is the true story of how "The Colonel's Playbook" transformed a school and the future of every student he coached.
Writer/director Tim Williams will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.