Women Texas Film Festival: Sugar, Spice, & Grit

Details

Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Thursday, 04 August 2016 22:36

Written by Casey Hernandez

The Women Texas Film Festival, held at the Texas Theatre (231 W Jefferson Blvd, Dallas, TX 75208), showcases the range and depth of female driven visual stories. This film festival isn’t just made of sugar and spice, it's got some grit and gasoline, too.

WTxFF (August 19 - 21, 2016) screens qualified films that have women in at least one key creative role: Writer, Producer, Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Composer. The festival also hosts virtual reality demos, game room, Q&As with filmmakers, panel discussions, a master class, exclusive parties, and a gala night with filmmaker red carpet.

In 42 Seconds of Happiness a circle of friends reunite for a weekend away to celebrate the same sex wedding of a member of their group. Yet, despite their best efforts to behave themselves, a series of surprise plans, unexpected arrivals and exposed secrets lead to an explosion of drama that, coupled with the flammable combination of hurt feelings, unresolved tensions, and lots of wine cannot be contained.

Girl Asleep, a vibrant portrayal of Australian adolescence, follows Greta Driscoll as her bubble of obscure loserdom is burst when her parents throw her a surprise 15th birthday party and invite the whole school! Perfectly content being a wallflower, suddenly Greta's flung far from her comfort zone into a distant, parallel place -- a strange world that’s a little frightening and a lot weird, but only there can she find herself. Equal measures Wes Anderson and Lewis Carroll, Girl Asleep is an enchanting journey into the absurd -- and sometimes scary -- depths of the teenage mind.

The festival also has multiple specialized tracks of short films. The “Video Mix Tape” shorts program takes audience members on a visual ride that ranges from the high comedy of a brother and sister who can’t stop bickering as they attempt to choose a casket for a loved one, and two couples that must do some fast thinking to outsmart a magical board game that has transported them to the Old West, to the emotional lows and heart-wrenching drama of a little boy determining the fate of a piggy bank he has come to love, and a prostitute that must make a hard choice in order to provide for her autistic son.

The “Youth” shorts program, many of which were directed by local up-and-coming female filmmakers, features films that deal with the conflicts and hurdles ever-present in the lives of young women, be it dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, escaping poverty, getting out of a day at work in order to head out to the beach, navigating the dating world, or being a transvestite in the unforgiving religious culture in Pakistan.

To learn more, go to: http://womentxff.org

The Women Texas Film Festival
August 19 - 21, 2016

The Texas Theatre
231 W Jefferson Blvd.
Dallas, TX 75208

• < Prev
• Next >