2010 MARFA FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES PROGRAM

The 2010 Marfa Film Festival program includes twenty shorts and seventeen features, running from May 5-9, 2010. From the official press release:

Sampling the full list of films to be featured indoors at the lofty Crowley Theater, a few jump out: “Roll Out, Cowboy” featuring Sandman, the Rappin’ Cowboy, from Dunn Center, ND (pop. 120 and falling), Omar Rodriguez Lopez’s “The Sentimental Engine Slayer,” a compelling tribute to his hometown El Paso and its microcosmic hybrid of Latino and American culture, and two films dealing with war in Iraq ­– “The Dry Land” (partially shot in Marfa) about vets suffering with PTSD and “The Unreturned” about the displaced Iraqi middle-class. The later two screen back-to-back with discussion questions provided by Marfa-based war journalist Dahr Jamail.

Other highlights include “Year of the Carnivore,” a romantic-comedy-drama about a girl with an unrequited crush on a boy who thinks she’s bad in bed, a Canadian debut destined to break out with American audiences. Four Southwest shorts, “All Animals,” “A Lone Star State,” “The Big Bends” and “Air” add a tangible feel for the high desert and rising star Barry Jenkins travels to town to present his newest, “A Young Couple.”

The festival’s already legendary outdoor screenings under the stars, this year presented at El Cosmico on the Alamo Drafthouse Rolling Roadshow rig, features “The Sun Ship Game” by American cinema verité pioneer Robert Drew, filmed largely in Marfa at the 1969 glider competition, an extraordinary narrative feature about Ethiopian long-distance runner Abebe Bikila’s world of ancient serenity and majestic landscapes, and a revival of cult classic “The Harder They Come,” an unvarnished snapshot of life in Jamaica circa 1972 starring Jimmy Cliff. Outdoor screenings will be framed by tailor-made cultural events.

The festival concludes on Mother’s Day with a brunch sponsored by the Texas Film Commission and The Texas Association of Film Commissions. The final screening features Robert Frank’s “Conversations in Vermont” (1969) and the North American premiere of Lou Reed and Ralph Gibson’s “Red Shirley,” followed by a discussion with first-time filmmaker Lou Reed and noted photographer Ralph Gibson (who shot both Reed and Frank’s films).