Local film nonprofit Dallas Film Society (DFS) is proud to announce the full schedule for its 12th annual film festival, returning to Dallas for a new eight-day event from Thursday, May 3 to Thursday, May 10. This year, for the first time ever, all competition feature and short film screenings at the Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF) will take place at The Magnolia in Uptown’s West Village shopping center, representing some of the best in the art of film making.
The Festival will screen over 110 films from 25 countries and will kick off with a series of Special Events including an Opening Night Celebration at The Magnolia on Thursday, May 3 followed by a celebration in the streets of West Village. Family and student film screenings at Studio Movie Grill – Spring Valley will also take place during the 2018 DIFF, a 25th anniversary event for Steven Spielberg’s three-time Academy Award®-winning blockbuster Jurassic Park will screen at Studio Movie Grill – Spring Valley (13933 N. Central Expy) on Sunday, May 6, and a Closing Night event on Thursday, May 10 for the 40th anniversary screening of Animal House at Alamo Drafthouse – Cedars.
2018 DIFF Short Films
● Adversary directed by Scott Cummings
● After Her directed by Aly Migliori
● Agua Viva directed Alexa Lim Haas
● Allen Anders – Live at the Comedy Castle (circa 1987) directed by Laura Moss
● An Uncertain Future directed Chelsea Hernandez and Iliana Sosa
● Caroline directed by Logan George and Celine held
● Casa De Mi Madre directed by Frank Mosley
● Cole directed by David Call
● Death Metal Grandma directed by Leah Galant
● Don’t Be a Hero directed by Pete Lee
● Footprint directed by Sara Newens
● Fry Day directed by Laura Moss
● Great Light directed by Tony Oswald
● Hair Wolf directed by Mariama Diallo
● Happy Birthday directed by Betsy Holt
● Heavy Chemistry directed by Blair Rowan
● Hey Ronnie Reagan directed by Maurice O’Brien
● Krista directed by Danny Madden
● LANCE LIZARDI directed by Xander Robin
● Lolz-Ita directed by Katie Boland
● Lovestreams directed by Sean Buckelew
● Maude directed by Anna Margaret Hollyman
● Mobius directed by Sam Kuhn
● Mother Mother directed by Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck
● Nuuca directed by Michelle Latimer
● Rally directed by L. Ashwyn Corris
● Reluctantly Queer directed by Akosua Adoma Owusu
● Roadside Attraction directed by Patrick Bresnan and Ivete Lucas
● Saltwater Baptism directed by Jared Callahan and Russell Sheaffer
● The Mangina Exit directed by Byron Brown
● The Water Slide directed by Nathan Truesdell
● This My Favorite Mural directed by Michael Arcos
● tomnoddy directed by Charles Poekel
● True Blue directed by Chris Osborn
● ULTRAVIOLET directed by Marc Johnson
● Copa-Loca directed by Christos Massalas
● June directed by Huay-Bing Law
2018 DIFF Feature Films
● The Brawler directed by Anurag Kashyap – Shravan slogs day and night to achieve his dream of being a recognized boxer in India. Things go awry when he falls in love with the niece of his arch nemesis, the head of the state boxing federation.
● Dark Money directed by Kimberly Reed – A political thriller examining one of the greatest present threats to American democracy: the influence of untraceable corporate money on our elections and elected officials.
● Generation Wealth directed by Lauren Greenfield – Simultaneously personal journey and historical essay, this documentary bears witness to the global boom – bust economy, the corrupted American Dream, and the human costs of late stage capitalism, narcissism, and greed.
● Guilty directed by Gustav Möller – Alarm dispatcher and former police officer, Asger Holm, answers an emergency call from a kidnapped woman. When the call is suddenly disconnected, the search for the woman and her kidnapper begins.
● Paradox directed by YIP Wai Shun – When his daughter goes missing in Thailand, a Hong Kong cop teams with local police to find her, but instead finds himself embroiled in a web of corruption and violence in this explosive thriller.
● Sick For Toys directed by David Del Rio (Pitch Perfect) – Roy is the nice guy who finishes last. Sick of his current situation, he accepts an invitation to have Christmas dinner with the beautiful and strangely alluring Emilia. Once at dinner, Roy realizes that Emilia and her oddball brother are not what they seem.
● Sheikh Jackson directed by Amr Salama – An Islamic cleric has a crisis of faith when he hears the news that his childhood idol, Michael Jackson, has died.
● EDGE OF THE WORLD directed by Randy Redroad – Admired for his leadership with at risk young men, Coach Davis is well respected by his peers. After a devastating personal loss five years ago, Coach Davis must find the strength to heal and to once again find value in helping those that need him.
● Eleven Hundred to Lubbock directed by Sara Radle – After the recent death of her brother, Sam soon finds herself making unlikely relationships with her brother’s eclectic group of buddies as they relay-run his ashes form Los Angeles to Lubbock to spread his remains at Buddy Holly’s grave.
● An American in Texas by Anthony Pedone/Starring Barry Corbin – An angry and defiantly disordered underclass of nowheresville punk-rock kids, see their band Surgeon General’s Warning as their ticket out of small town Texas, as 1990 comes to a close.
● Sons of St. Clair directed by Tim Newfang – Sons of St. Clair chronicles Hip Hop icons Krayzie Bone and Bizzy Bone of Bone Thugs N Harmony, as they journey into the studio to record a duet album. An intimate to the world of Bone, the city where they come from, and their plans for the future.
● Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda directed by Stephen Nomura Schible – An intimate portrait of one of the artist’s prolific career spanning over 4 decades, from techno-pop stardom to Oscar – winning film composer.
● DEAD PIGS directed by Cathy Yan – A bumbling pig farmer, a feisty salon owner, a sensitive busboy, an ambition expat architect and a disenchanted rich girl converge and collide as thousands of dead pigs float down the river towards a rapidly modernizing Shanghai, China.
● American Curious directed by Gabylu Lara – David Green, a lonely and mediocre stand-up comedian who lives in Chicago soon discovers that his biological mother is a Mexican who recently died and left him a soup restaurant in Mexico City.
● Eighth Grade directed by Bo Burnham – Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school.
● First Reformed directed by Paul Schrader/Starring Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, and Cedric The Entertainer – Reverend Ernst Toller is a solitary, middle-aged parish pastor at a small Dutch Reform church in upstate New York on the cusp of celebrating its 250th anniversary.
● 1985 directed by Yen Tan – Inspired by the award-winning short film of the same name “1985” follows Adrian, a closeted young man returning to his Texas hometown for Christmas during the first wave of the AIDS crisis.
● Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me directed by Sam Pollard – The first major film documentary to examine Davis’ vast talent and his journey for identity through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress during 20th-century America.
● ROXANNE ROXANNE directed by Michael Larnell – At the age of 14, Lolita “Roxanne Shante” Gooden was well on her way to becoming a hip-hop legend in the 1980s as she hustled to provide for her family while defending herself from the dangers of the streets in Queens, NYC.
● Operation Toussaint directed by 5-time Emmy Award-winner Nick Nanton and Ramy Romany – Tim Ballard leaves his post as a special agent for the U.S. Dept., of Homeland Security to form Operation Underground Railroad and goes undercover to rescue child sex trafficking victims.
● The Iron Orchard directed Ty Roberts – The story of Jim McNeely, a young man thrust into the vibrant and brutal West Texas oil fields in 1939, who works his way through the ranks to ultimately become a formidable wildcatter.
● Tejano directed by David Blue Garcia – Desperate for cash to save his sick Grandfather, a South Texas farmhand resorts to the extreme: he breaks his own arm to smuggle a cast made of cocaine across the Mexican border.
● Life is a Bitch directed by Julia Rezende – Lonely, frustrated, and unable to do anything to make sense of their lives, Vladimir, Clivia, Regina, and Primo make an absurd plan: to kidnap a millionaire. But they don’t have experience with crime or notion of what it involves.
● Woman Walks Ahead directed by Susanna White/Starring Sam Rockwell and Jessica Chastain – The film follows Catherine Weldon, a widowed artist from New York who, in the 1880s, traveled alone to North Dakota to paint a portrait of Chief Sitting Bull.
● The Miseducation of Cameron Post directed by Desiree Akhvan/Starring Chloe Grace Moretz and Marin Ireland – Cameron Post is caught with another girl the back seat of a car on prom night and quickly shipped off to a conversion therapy center that treats teens with “struggling same-sex attraction.”
● Blind Spotting directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada/Starring Daveed Diggs – Collin must make it through his final three days of probation for a chance at a new beginning.
● Also Starring Austin directed by Mike Blizzard – From Tobe Hooper’s first film Eggshells, to classic films from Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez, to underground rarities and star-driven Hollywood fare, locally shot films provide a rare ongoing time capsule of one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S.
● Daphne and Velma directed by Suzi Yoonessi – The story of Daphne Blake and Velma Dinkley from the Scooby Doo Mystery Inc. gang. Mystery-solving teens are best friends but have only met online – until Daphne transfer to Velma’s school, Ridge Valley High.
● The Independents by Greg Naughton – The Independents is musical comedy and drama about three struggling solo-artists who collide at the same “crossroads” and discover harmony. Starring real-life bandmates of folk-rock trio The Sweet Remains.
● Course directed by Augustin Falco – Ariel is a young family man, who loses his job in the middle of an economic crisis. Ashamed by it, he decides to hide the truth from his wife and daughter, agreeing to take part in some shady business.
● On Her Shoulders directed by Alexandria Bombach – At only twenty-three years old, Nadia survived the 2014 genocide of the Yazidis in Northern Iraq and escaped sexual slavery at the hand of ISIS to become relentless beacon of hope for her people.
● Frame of Mind: Remixing the News directed by Jeremy Spracklen, Christian Vasquez, Justin Wilson, Gordon K. Smith, Steve Baker, Carmen Menza, Madison McMakin, Blaine Dunlap, Michael Thomas, Dakota Ford, and Alexander Morris – From 1960 to 1977, WFAA donated raw news footage to the Bill Jones Collection at SMU. 10 Dallas filmmakers explore these images and create original works, reflecting the city of Dallas and its history through the media.
● Don’t Forget Me directed by Ram Nehari – During a stint at the Eating Disorder Unit, Tom shows signs that her health is improving. The film follows Tom as she falls for an awkward tuba player at a vulnerable moment in her life, a dark comedy about the need to be out of your mind in order to fall madly in love.
● Shirkers directed by Sandi Tan – In 1922, teenage VHS-bootlegger Sandi Tan and her fellow film-geek pals Jasmine Ng and Sophie Siddique shot Singapore’s first road movie with their enigmatic American mentor.
● Shock and Awe directed by Rob Reiner/Starring Jessica Biel, Woody Harrelson, James Marsden, and Tommy Lee Jones – A group of journalists covering George Bush’s planned invasion of Iraq in 2003 post-9/11 are skeptical of the President’s claim that Saddam Hussein has “weapons of mass destruction”.
● Hearts Beat Loud directed by Brett Haley/Starring Nick Offerman and Toni Collette – In the hip Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook, single dad and record store owner Frank is preparing to send his hard-working daughter Sam off to college, while being forced to close his vintage shop.
● Summer of ‘84 directed by RKSS – Every serial killer is somebody’s neighbor. For 15-year-old Davey. the thought of having a serial killer in his suburban town is a scary yet exciting prospect at the start of a lazy summer. The teens decide to investigate.
● Loud Krazy Love directed by Trey Hill and Scott Mayo – The sound Brian “Head” Welch helped pioneer with KoRn in the early ‘90s provided identity to a generation of misfits and made him a global rock star. The film details the harrowing journey of Brain and his daughter Jenna growing up together with chaotic courage and unconventional faith after facing an addition to crystal meth.
● Madeline’s Madeline directed by Josephine Decker/Starring Miranda July – Madeline has become an integral part of a prestigious physical theater troupe. When the workshop’s ambitious director (pushes the teenager to weave her rich interior world and troubled history with her mother into their collective art, the lines between performance and reality begin to blur.
● Brewmaster directed by Douglas Tirola – In 1998 there were less than 1,500 breweries in the United States – now there are over 7,000. This film tells the story of the rise of craft beer through two young men pursuing their dreams in the world of beer.
A full list of films and categories can be found on the 2018 DIFF Online Film Guide. To purchase passes for the 2018 DIFF, please click here. Sponsors for the 2018 DIFF include Mercury One, MoviePass, Starpower, Tesla, and The Stoneleigh Hotel.
About Dallas Film Society
Dallas Film Society is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting film, filmmakers and film education through our annual events, the Dallas International Film Festival and The Art of Film, through membership events and screenings, and through our educational programs: Summer Film Camp, the High School Roundtables and High School Day, and The Veterans Institute for Film & Media. Dallas Film provides leadership in screen education and the recognition and celebration of excellence in the art of film, television and digital media. For more information, please visit www.dallasfilm.org.
