After attending two Dallas International Film Festivals, I’ve discovered that one of the pleasures of a smaller fest is in connecting with the other movie lovers around me. One can certainly do the same at a gargantuan event like South By Southwest, but there’s a distinct difference. At SXSW, you might connect with a few people as you’re standing in line for a screening, or while in the theater before the show starts. Because of the thousands and thousands in attendance, however, there’s a good chance you might never see the same person twice over the course of the fest. That’s not the case at DIFF.
I made several festival friends during DIFF 2024, so much so that we discussed our schedules in order to coordinate sitting together and – more importantly – so we could save each other seats if needed. This came in handy at least once for me, as I arrived at a screening with only minutes to spare. Political or other differences melt away as we all come together to look at and wrestle with the art in front of us. (I was asked at one point by one of my fest buddies to sign a petition to get Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the ballot in Texas for November’s election. I politely declined, and we went back to talking movies for the rest of the fest. I did spare a thought for my single-serving friend when RFK, Jr. announced a few days later that a brain worm had eaten part of his brain.)
I befriended one fellow attendee – who graciously offered up one of his drink tickets to me as we waited for a screening to start – and we discovered that we live in the same Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff. He told me about how much the OC has changed since he arrived in the early 1980s, and I could relate, as Rae and I have seen quite a bit of change in the nine years since we moved to the area.
I was also able to connect with a few other local critics, and it was a joy to talk shop with them as we stood in line to see films together. Aside from the movies I saw, my biggest takeaway from DIFF 2024 was an appreciation for Dallas as a hub for passionate film lovers of all stripes.
*****
After describing to Rae a few clunkers I saw in the early going, she made the comment that it sounded like DIFF, like SXSW, was a little uneven this year. I initially agreed with her, but as I now look over what I saw, I realize that I was premature in that assessment. For example, six films in a row, which I saw over the course of Saturday and Sunday alone, all earned high marks from me.
The weekend started off with the maddening but ultimately inspiring documentary Unlikely Allies. The movie tells the story of Weldon Angelos, a man who was sentenced in the early 2000s to 55 years in prison for selling a few hundred dollars’ worth of marijuana. It was also his first ever run-in with the criminal justice system. Angelos was determined to fight this gross perversion of justice, and the people who gathered to help him in that fight make the movie’s title seem like a wild understatement.
Libertarian billionaire (and, in my book, one of the most destructive forces in modern American history) Charles Koch, far-right Utah senator Mike Lee, progressive senator Corey Booker, and none other than Snoop Dogg all played a part in Weldon’s efforts to reverse the horrific consequences of mandatory minimum sentencing.
Unlikely Allies confronts the racist nature of our justice system, acknowledging the fact that, because he is white, Weldon was able to make headway with the political establishment for no other reason than it was easier for them to identify with him because of his race. The documentary also explores the fact that Weldon was an up-and-coming producer in the rap music world. The power structure seemed determined, especially in the early 2000s, to send a message that being involved in Black culture, no matter your race, was the quickest way to get a target on your back.
*****
Viggo Mortensen directed, produced, stars in, and composed the music for a new western called The Dead Don’t Hurt that ultimately feels like it could be a counterpoint – although decidedly less epic in scope – to Gone with the Wind. Mortensen plays a Danish immigrant named Holger Olsen who falls in love with another newly minted American, the determinedly self-reliant French-Canadian Vivienne Le Coudy. When Holger decides to enlist in the army to help his adoptive home country’s effort in the American Civil War, a corrupt mayor and the rich, entitled son of a local power player make life hell for Vivienne in her husband’s absence.
The wonderfully talented Vicky Krieps – who popped onto my radar in Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant Phantom Thread – carries the weight of the film on her shoulders as Vivienne. Mortensen scrambles the timeline of his picture – Pulp Fiction’s structure came to mind as I watched The Dead Don’t Hurt – which knocked me for a loop until I made one key realization during the first act.
A still from The Dead Don’t Hurt
Marcel Zyskind’s cinematography is stunningly beautiful, and it’s a delight (and possibly a contractual obligation?) to see both Danny Huston and Garret Dillahunt any time they appear in a western. (I’m of the firm belief that Dillahunt was born about 100 years too late.)
I got a special treat before the screening in that DIFF had arranged for Texas-based film critic Joe Leydon to deliver pre-screening comments from Mortensen, who was unable to attend because of a scheduling conflict. Leydon wrote a book in 2004 titled Movies You Must See If You Read, Write About, or Make Movies. I read it about a decade later, only months before deciding to hang out my own shingle on the internet as a film critic. It was a delight to be in proximity to one of the inspirations of my own film criticism journey.
*****
I won’t make you suffer through a lengthy description of everything else I saw at DIFF that’s worthy of praise, but I wanted to offer a sentence or two in order to get them on your radar:
- We Grown Now is a quietly devastating picture of life in the mid-1990s in Chicago’s infamous Cabrini-Green housing project. The film, with its poetically lyrical passages, is a successor to something like Moonlight, and I wouldn’t be upset if it receives an Oscar Best Picture nomination next year.
- I Saw the TV Glow, from director Jane Schoenbrun, who gave us the 2021 mind-bender We're All Going to the World's Fair, is a neon-tinged, 1990s-set stunner that deals with the isolation of adolescence and becoming absolutely obsessed with a pop-culture phenomenon at an impressionable age. The show that the main characters are obsessed with in the movie looks and talks like Nickelodeon shows from the era, like Are You Afraid of the Dark?. As a kid who was mesmerized by The X-Files during this period, I felt a deep connection with the characters in the movie. The music of I Saw the TV Glow complements the visuals magnificently.
A still from I Saw the TV Glow
- Print it Black is hard to watch, but incredibly necessary. The documentary covers the horrific 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas and one local newspaper’s dedication to covering the devastating aftermath. One woman who works for the paper lost her daughter in the Robb Elementary shooting, and she has come to national prominence as a fierce advocate for gun reform in the US.
- Clemente is an uplifting look at the life and times of the legendary Pittsburgh Pirates baseball player Roberto Clemente. The documentary shows us the native-Puerto Rican Clemente’s impact not only on his chosen sport, but on the countless people he helped and inspired through charity work and speaking out against racism.
- An Army of Women is an inspiring documentary focused on a group of plaintiffs (and their fierce legal representation) who force a reckoning with law enforcement in Austin, Texas over their mishandling of countless rape cases in the city. We come to know this group of women and their stories over the course of the film, and their righteous fight for justice is the heart of the movie.
- Desire Lines is an uncompromising look at the culture and humanity of the transmasculine community. Director Jules Rosskam delivers an intoxicating mix of documentary-style interviews with trans men that are woven throughout a fictional storyline. The narrative portion of Desire Lines focuses on an Iranian-American trans man who experiences the history of the LGBTQ+ community first hand while performing research in an effort to understand his own identity.
- Sing Sing, the closing night film of DIFF 2024, is an absolute revelation. This quiet, contemplative examination of a group of prisoners at the infamous New York prison who select, rehearse, and produce theatrical presentations for the other inmates is a beautiful example of humanist filmmaking. These men are dedicated to using art to grow personally and to transcend the prison in which they are trapped. Actor Colman Domingo gives an Oscar-worthy performance as John "Divine G" Whitfield, a real-life inmate who participated in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program that gives inmates hope for a future beyond their cell walls.
A still from Sing Sing
*****
That’s a pretty damn great run of quality films for this year’s DIFF, and, although I saw my fair share of duds, the fest was an enriching experience. I checked off a classic-Hollywood blind spot by attending the one classic screening held at each DIFF; this year’s selection was the 1957 Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr romance An Affair to Remember, which was a delight.
I saw a documentary with local ties called Dark Santuary: The Story of the Church, about one of the longest-running goth clubs in the US. The screening brought out dozens of people who lived what we saw in the documentary – most of them decked out in their finest goth apparel – which made for a singular viewing experience.
I even had a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants moment when we were informed before one screening started that the only version of the film DIFF had was one without English subtitles included. As the movie’s original language was Spanish, and as I struggled mightily to get through the two years of Spanish I took in high school (three decades ago!) I bailed. Luckily there was a shorts block starting at about the same time, so I swapped screenings at the last possible minute.
After SXSW and DIFF (and some mental health struggles) I’ve had a hard time getting back into my regular routine. (That’s a big part of why this post was published so long after the end of the fest.) I’m hoping that the upcoming advance screening of one of my most anticipated movies of 2024, Furiosa, will get me back into gear. I’m also planning to cover, for the first time, the Oak Cliff Film Festival, which is only a month away.
Movies are neat.