SCREEN TIME

Austin independent cinema partners up with major film festival for exclusive screenings

AFS Cinema is partnering with the Sundance Film Festival in 2021.

Photo courtesy of Austin Film Society

The show must go on, even in a pandemic. And Austin’s only nonprofit art-house theater has been tapped to keep the reels rolling for one of the world’s most iconic film festivals.

The Sundance Film Festival has chosen the Austin Film Society as a “satellite screens” partner for the 2021 event, making the AFS Cinema, located in the Linc, one of only a couple dozen locations throughout the country where film lovers can view selections from the 2021 festival in person.

The seven-day festival runs January 28 through February 3, 2021, with programming specifics released in the coming weeks. The satellite-screen designation means AFS Cinema will be able to show Sundance’s feature films for the festival alongside customized local programming. And with AFS’ deep local film connections, it wouldn’t be surprising if some Texas film personalities make an appearance.

“This Sundance Film Festival partnership is a wonderful avenue for AFS to further our mission of supporting and championing filmmakers and film culture here in Texas,” says AFS CEO Rebecca Campbell. “As so many emerging Texas filmmakers have found a home at the Sundance Film Festival over the years, it’s exciting that our film community will have the opportunity to host the festival in 2021. We are planning for safe, socially distant screenings of Sundance Film Festival selections, with more details to be announced in the coming weeks.”

In addition to partnerships with its satellite-screens locations, Sundance will offer a digital platform so audiences can view the festival’s films, artist events, and Q&As at home.

The partnership came about thanks to a history of collaboration between the festival and the local film society. AFS, which has a longstanding relationship with the Sundance Film Festival and shares its mission to support emerging artists, has in previous years recommended AFS-supported filmmakers for Sundance lab programs, provided travel grants to Texas-based artists exhibiting work at the festival, and hosted Sundance’s traveling programs at the AFS Cinema.

“The Sundance Film Festival contacted us when they were considering this new format, and we were intrigued and, of course, excited about the possibility of a deeper collaboration on the festival itself,” says Holly Herrick, AFS head of film and creative media.

AFS Cinema closed earlier this year because of COVID-19 but launched its AFS screening service so viewers could stream the theater’s film lineup at home. The Sundance screenings will mark the cinema’s first in-person events since the theater closed because of the pandemic. Opening the theater after many months of closure is a hard act to follow, but Herrick says AFS plans to implement new safety measures for festival screenings.

“We are planning to screen the films indoors at the AFS Cinema. We are monitoring Austin’s COVID-19 situation closely and are prepared to make changes to our plan should Austin remain at the Stage 4 risk level in January,” she says, noting the cinema’s full safety plan will be posted on the AFS website prior to tickets going on sale. “In addition to the state safety mandates including significantly reduced capacity in theaters, AFS will be implementing increased safety guidelines for these events. Some of these plans include eliminating lobby concessions during the festival, no eating or drinking in the theater so that masks can be worn at all times while indoors, spacing parties at a minimum of 6 feet apart, and thorough cleaning and disinfecting after each audience leaves the theater.”

Though in-person film screenings have their challenges, the partnership is a win-win for both entities; Sundance gets to screen its films and programming to a larger audience than would be possible in person in its usual Utah setting, and AFS Cinema gets people in the seats once again.

“The core of our festival in the form of an online platform and socially distanced cinematic experiences is responsive to the pandemic and gives us the opportunity to reach new audiences, safely, where they are,” says Tabitha Jackson, first-year festival director for Sundance. “And thanks to a constellation of independent cinema communities across the U.S., we are not putting on our festival alone. At the heart of all this is a belief in the power of coming together and the desire to preserve what makes a festival unique: a collaborative spirit, a collective energy, and a celebration of the art, artists, and ideas that leave us changed.”

Other Texas satellite-screens partners for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival include Dallas’ Aviation Cinemas, showing screenings at Texas Theatre, and the Houston Cinema Arts Society, which will offer screenings at Moonstruck Drive-In and the DeLuxe Theater in Houston.

Single-day, single-screening, and full-festival tickets and passes will be available beginning January 7.

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Movie Review

Strange decisions pay off in unusual movie musical Emilia Pérez

Photo courtesy of Netflix

Zoe Saldaña and Karla Sofía Gascón in Emilia Pérez.

Musicals have been used as a medium to convey all sorts of different stories, from the Old West, to cats, to one of the Founding Fathers. But it takes a certain kind of imagination to think that a cartel boss making a gender transition as she quits the drug business is a prime candidate for an original movie musical, as is done in Emilia Pérez.

The person with that unusual thinking is French writer/director Jacques Audiard, who in addition to making the film a musical, decided to do it almost entirely in Spanish, a language he doesn’t even speak. Adding to all the other atypical aspects, the main character of the film is not the one after whom the film is named. Instead, the main character is Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña), the lawyer hired by cartel boss Manitas Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón), to help her achieve her dream of becoming a woman.

Of course, that dream comes with consequences, most importantly how to separate the soon-to-be Emilia Pérez from her wife, Jessi (Selena Gomez), and her kids without arousing suspicion. The solution, as well as the “death” of Manitas, is elegant, but after a period of time Emilia finds herself longing for her kids again. Rita re-enters to set up the arrangements, setting in motion a series of events that are both predictable and unpredictable.

The musical sequences of the film are fascinating, mostly because they don’t adhere to the rules typically used in musical films. More often than not they pop up out of nowhere, with a character speaking normally and then deciding that the next line needs to be the start of a song. This allows Audiard to utilize all sorts of locations as the settings for the sequences, as well as the incorporation of unorthodox elements, such as the loading of guns as musical beats.

Even though 90 percent of the film is in Spanish with English subtitles, none of the feeling of the story is lost in translation. Several of the songs are certified bangers, with the repetition of phrases giving them a great rhythm even if you have to keep glancing down to understand what they’re singing. Each of the main three characters get a chance to shine even though none of the songs require the actors to belt them out.

Audiard does a subtle job of commenting on the experience of being a transgender woman in the position that Emilia finds herself. Her desire to live her life as she’s always wanted is in conflict with still wanting to see her kids, as she doesn’t want to reveal the person she used to be. Her personal life is also in conflict with a newfound urge to help families that were victimized by Manitas. The ever-changing story keeps both the characters and the audience on their toes.

Saldaña, whose time in the worlds of Star Trek, Marvel, and Avatar the past 15 years has been her biggest exposure, digs deep into this character, putting on a compelling performance. So too does Gascón, a Spanish transgender actor who embodies every aspect of her role in a manner only someone like her could. Gomez seems slightly miscast, but she has enough solid scenes to justify her presence in the film.

Emilia Pérez is a film that upends expectations at almost every turn. While it might have also worked as a non-musical, the music side of it supports the story in unconventional ways, drawing the audience deeper into a story that itself is out of the ordinary.

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Emilia Pérez is now streaming on Netflix.

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