Most people driving north to Austin this weekend are gearing up for the Austin City Limits festival, oblivious to the fact that darker, more subversive kicks are offered throughout town: The increasingly ambitious Cinematexas festival, which started as a showcase for student work but now has its fingers in all sorts of international cultural pies, is already underway. A day's worth of screenings have passed, but most of the exciting stuff is still to come.
The Alamo Drafthouse will be a trippy classroom for Science is Fiction on Thursday, September 18, featuring a compilation of educational films by the late Frenchman Jean Painlevé. His quirky shorts are full of a wit and visual flair rarely seen in educational movies; in them, seahorses wave in the current to the orchestral music of Darius Milhaud, and a vampire bat creeps about an unsuspecting guinea pig while a Duke Ellington trombone section wails. Gallic narrators deliver deliciously lively commentary while an octopus writhes across dry land and liquids crystallize like a kaleidoscopic rainbow.
Friday, September 19 kicks off Eye + Ear, a music microseries featuring Dutch punk band The Ex, Tijuana's killer Nortec Collective, saxophonist John Butcher (who will appear at the 811 Art Lounge in San Antonio on Monday, September 22), and more. It also offers a screening of Naomi Uman's diptych "Leche"/"Mala Leche," an intriguing study in documentary technique that contrasts one poetic, beautiful black-and-white film with a dry, stiffly prosaic color one. The two films add up to a sad look at the experience of Mexican ranchers who come to California for work.
On the University of Texas campus, journalist Alexander Cockburn will talk about the media and government as part of Parallax View, a series of confrontational political events which will include (on Saturday, September 20) appearances by poster artists Robbie Conal and Eric Drooker.
The festival has short films at its heart: Scores of shorts by local and international filmmakers are scattered throughout the schedule, grouped in programs of a half-dozen works each - but organizers have picked a few challenging longer pieces which are a decidedly mixed bag. Only the bravest avant-garde champions will endure James Fotopoulus' The Nest, and appreciators of Howard Hawks and critic Manny Farber should be warned that Jean-Pierre Gorin's film has less to do with them than with model-train enthusiasts. But Babette Mangolte's The Models of Pickpocket, which is nothing more than a series of interviews with the cast of the 1959 film, will be fascinating for cineastes obsessed with Robert Bresson (non-obsessives should look elsewhere).
This year's marquee name is Far From Heaven director Todd Haynes, who will present some of his short films and be ready to discuss all of them. Now is the time to hit him with questions about Superstar, the legendary movie in which Barbie dolls tell the tragic story of Karen Carpenter - a cult classic which can't legally be screened in public thanks to a lawsuit brought by Karen's brother.
The fest's last day brings a second screening of one of its biggest treats, a survey of work by German animator Oskar Fischinger. From the '20s through the '40s, Fischinger made pioneering "visual music" that turned classical works into an explosion of abstract shapes and patterns. His legacy can be seen on MTV and in Fantasia, a project he worked on for a while but felt was beneath him.
Space doesn't allow a full list of highlights, but suffice to say that there is plenty of stuff to do in Austin this week that doesn't involve standing around in the heat. Go with open eyes, and leave the sunscreen at home. •
CINEMATEXAS 2003
The festival runs through Sunday, September 21. For specific information on screenings - or for passes - go to www.cinematexas.org. Tickets are also available in Austin at Vulcan Video, 33 Degrees, and Waterloo Records.
Thursday 9|18
The Hideout Theatre/Cabaret
(617 Congress, 512-682-6914)
2:30pm UT 6 10 Under 10
4:30pm Int'l 4 I Am Today's Lesson Plan
6:30pm Command Performance: Films by UT RTF Faculty
9:15pm Int'l 3 A Change Forewarned
The Hideout, upstairs
6:30pm Int'l 8 Enduring Freedom
8:30pm Int'l 10 One Too Many Mornings
The Yard Dog
(1510 S. Congress, 512-912-1613)
8pm Backyard BBQ
8:30pm Int'l Blow Up
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Downtown
(409 Colorado, 512-476-1320)
7pm Int'l 11 50 Miles of Elbow Room
9:15pm Science is Fiction: The Films of Jean Painlevé
New Gallery
(Doty Fine Arts Building, first floor, UT campus)
6-8pm Bama Kantor reception
Friday 9|19
The Hideout
2pm UT 2 Demolition Derby
4pm Int'l 9 Come Again, Sweet Love
6pm Naomi Uman: Leche/Mala Leche
8:15pm Int'l 1 Monkey No Love
10:15pm Int'l 6 Total Information Awareness
The Hideout, upstairs
5:30pm Int'l 7 Another Green World
7:30pm I Try Again: Face/Off Holland
9:30pm New Mexican Documentaries
Texas Union Theatre
(24th & Guadalupe, near the UT Tower, 512-475-6636)
3pm UT 4 TV Party
5pm UT 3 On My Turf
7pm Int'l 8 Enduring Freedom
9pm Jean-Pierre Gorin on Manny Farber
ACES
(Speedway & 24th, UT campus)
7pm Keynote: Mark Dery
9pm Homebrew: Indie and student games and mods
Waller Creek Auditorium
(710 E. 41st, 512-467-7756)
8pm Austin Eye + Ear: Kaffe Matthews & John Butcher
Arthouse at the Jones Gallery
(700 Congress, 512-453-5312)
6-8pm William Pope.L reception
Vortex Theatre
(2307 Manor, 512-478-5282)
11pm Austin Eye + Ear: Nortec
Burdine Hall
(26th & Wichita)
Parallax View
5pm Geoff Bowie: The Universal Clock
6:30pm Alexander Cockburn
Saturday 9|20
The Hideout
11:45am Int'l 50 Miles of Elbow Room
1:45pm James Fotopoulos: The Nest
3:45pm Int'l 4 I Am Today's Lesson Plan
5:45pm Tehran Now: Face/Off Iran
7:45pm Int'l 9 Come Again, Sweet Love
10pm Int'l 5 You Are Here
Texas Union Theatre
Noon UT 5 You Are Here
2pm Int'l 7 Another Green World
4pm UT 1 Dear Miss Lonelyhearts
6pm Int'l 10 One Too Many Mornings
8pm Todd Haynes: Assassins
Harry Ransom Center
(Guadalupe & 21st, UT campus, 512-471-8944)
1pm I Try Again: Face/Off Holland
3pm Babette Mangolte: Models of Pickpocket
Alamo Drafthouse
Midnight Int'l/UT Midnight 2: Circle of Life
Emo's
(603 Red River, 512-477-EMOS)
10pm The Ex with Attack Formation & America is Waiting
Terra Cognita
6, 8, & 10pm Richard Maxwell: Showcase
Creative Research Laboratory
(2832 E. MLK, 512-322-2099)
6-8pm Parallax View/Terra Cognita opening reception
Flawn Academic Center #21 (UT campus, west of the Tower)
Parallax View
11am Christoph Keller: Radical Subjectivity
Noon Jason Simon: Production Notes
1pm Robbie Conal
2pm Eric Drooker
3:30pm Richard Porton, Kevin Brownlow: Winstanely, Nick MacDonald: The Liberal War
Sunday 9|21
The Hideout
12:30pm UT 4 TV Pary
2:30pm Int'l 3 A Change Forewarned
4:30pm UT6 10
Under 10
The Hidout, upstairs
2:30pm Tehran Now: Face/Off Iran
5pm The Texas Show
Alamo Drafthouse
Noon Int'l 1 Monkey
No Love
2pm New Mexican Documentaries
4:30pm Oskar Fischinger Retrospective
6pm Int'l 2 Energy Fools the Magician
Texas Union Theatre
1pm Todd Haynes: Dottie Gets Spanked
3:30pm UT 1 Dear Miss Lonelyhearts
5:30pm UT 2 Demolition Derby
ACES
Games Without Borders
3:30pm Ed Halter: War Games
5:30pm Paul Slocum: How to Make a Pop Band Out of '80s Computer Trash
7pm Cory Archangel: Burgertime
Waller Creek Auditorium
6pm Improv Trio: John Butcher, Kaffe Matthews, Andy Moor
Terra Cognita
6, 8, & 10pm Richard Maxwell: Showcase
Flawn Academic Center
Parallax View
Noon Micah Magee: Canbaz
1pm David Martinez: We Interrupt This Empire
1:30pm Juliana Fredman & Dan O'Reilly-Rowe: Notes From the Resistance
2pm The 4th World War
3:15pm Open forum to discuss the 5th World Trade Organization Conference
Burdine Hall
Noon Alexandre Sokurov: Confessions
UT, Studio 4E
1:30-4:30pm Cinemakids 03
Club DeVille
(900 Red River, 512-457-0900)
9pm Cinematexas Awards Ceremony •
