Lost river Film Fest returns for second year

Lost River Film Festival – San Marcos’ four-day gathering of independent cinema worship, that takes place downtown Nov. 1 through 4 – will be kicking off their diverse lineup of international and domestic film screenings starting Thursday.

The festival, a project of the San Marcos Cinema Club, features a diverse range of film screenings, a citywide youth essay contest for a Day of the Dead screening of “Coco,” a BMX spectacle titled Wheelz 'n' Reelz, a "Film Strip" burlesque show, director Q & As and workshops.

The San Marcos Cinema Club whittled down the selection to 75 submissions from across the globe, in addition to select new films plucked from other Texas festivals.

The Price Center will serve as the primary venue for the Lost River Film Festival screenings, with secondary locations to at Cuauhtemoc Hall, Texas State University's Performing Arts Center, Stonewall Warehouse and several downtown businesses – Tantra Coffeehouse, Gil's Broiler, Industry, Brooklyn Pie Co. and Root Cellar Bakery.

The festivities will kick off Thursday, Nov. 1 at 10 a.m. at the Price Center with Persian Bloc, a two-hour block consisting of five films created by Iranian filmmakers. The lineup will include “Flag,” “Are You Volleyball?!,” “Forouzan,” “Song of Hands,” and “Free Fly from the Fifth Floor.”

Following the Persian Bloc are four film screenings at the Price Center: “Life Is Fare,” “The Man Who Beat the Man,” “The Replacement” and “Signmakers of Montreal.” The latter will be followed by Q & A with director Matt Soar. The “Signmakers of Montreal” screening is presented by Studio San Martian.

A screening of “The Old Stripper,” a film directed by Jack Truman about his mother burlesque legend Opal Dockery, will be presented at the Price Center at 2:45 p.m., followed by Q & A with the director and star. In the film they travel the country on a road trip to all 48 continental states to visit her dancing cities from yesteryear, landmarks nationwide and interview over 50 burlesque dancers along the way – young and old – to show how burlesque is today compared to yesterday. “The Old Stripper” is presented by Dark Matter Productions.

From 5 to 7:30 p.m. the Price center will screen “Terror Nullius,”a political revenge fable which offers an un-writing of Australian national mythology, as well as international short films “Wintry Spring,” “Iku Manieva,” “Elroy's Birthday,” “Mama Qota,” “Piece of Mind,” “The Snag” and “Those Who Can Die.”

Thursday will end with a Garden Party on the Price Center and an opening night screening of “Idiocracy,” a Mike Judge film shot partially at San Marcos’ Gary Job Corp Center and the Starplex Theatre. The “Idiocracy” screening is presented by Planet K.

On Friday, screenings will kick off at the Price Center at 10 a.m. with “The God Inside My Ear” and “Mumpsimus & Halcyon Discord.”

Screenings will kick back up at noon at the Price Center on Friday with a global premiere of “Wind,” followed by Q & A with director Julian Montez; a screening of “Rodents of an Unusual Size” and “Lavoyger,” followed by Q & A with “Lavoyger” Director Rachel Bardin; a screening of “Through the Repellent Fence,” followed by Q & A with producer Jeffrey Brown and presented by the Indigenous Cultures Institute.

Winners of a citywide youth essay contest – reflecting on themes of family importance, as embodied in the film “Coco” – will be given awards at a free community screening of “Coco” at Cuauhtemoc Hall, the 75-yearold mutual-aid dance hall, at 6 p.m. on Friday. Ornate, flower bedecked altars will be on display and a free tamale dinner awaits attendees, courtesy the Center for the Study of the Southwest at Texas State University.

X Games medalist Chase Hawk gets air from a ramp during the 2017 Wheelz N' Reelz.

Friday night will close out with film screening of “The Lure,” presented by The Mermaid Society SMTX. “The Lure,” will be followed by “Revive,” a San Marcos film by Larry Mock.

On Saturday at noon, it's the audience favorite Wheelz ’N’ Reelz, a high-flying BMX spectacle with former X Games champs, alongside demos from the local roller-derby squad and the Unicycle Football League.

Wheels-themed cinema will play before and after, including a 10 a.m. screening of “Riding Wild: A So-called Documentary,” and “Locked Outside, ”presented by Planet K, a 2 p.m. viewing of pioneering BMX doc “Joe Kid on a Stingray.”

Saturday will also feature workshops with Former Director of Texas Film Commission Tom Copeland, Peabody- & Emmy-winning Film-maker Betty Buckley and Jeffrey Brown at the Price Center.

This year, in partnership with local grassroots immigrant rights group Mano Amiga, the Lost River Saturday lineup also offers the DACA Bloc, 12 powerful narratives centering on wildly varying tales of human migration, with filmmakers in attendance for a Q&A.

Co-director of the film festival Jordan Buckley said the DACA Bloc is a part of the festival and Cinema Club’s ethical guide to be a film society not only concerned with fim, but society.

“We’re a film society that prides itself on caring about both film and society and presently there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding and we need to not turn away,” Buckley said. “We need to tune in to the separation of children from their parents, that’s one of the reasons we embraced the opportunity to work with Mano Amigo and to showcase a dozen immigration films.”

Following the the DACA Bloc is a screening of the insurrectionary romp “Sorry to Bother You.”

Local actor Antonio Palacios, Arts Commissioner Anita Azenet and Cinema Club member Tafari Robertson at AquaBrew.

Saturday will close with a burlesque dance performance titled “The Film Strip” at Stonewall Warehouse.

Sunday will wind down with programming dedicated to Texas filmmakers, including a Local Showcase and the closing film “A Strike & an Uprising,” an experimental documentary based in the telling of two events: the San Antonio pecan shellers’ strike of 1938 and the Jobs with Justice march led by Nacogdoches cafeteria workers, groundskeepers, and housekeepers in 1987. The screening will be accompanied by Director Anne Lewis.

This year the San Marcos Cinema Club is giving a 50 percent discount for anyone with an ID showing they are a student or that they live in or within 25 miles of San Marcos.

Also the San Marcos Cinema Club is offering those who whisper "Daily Record" to the ticket booth at the screening of “Signmakers of Montreal,” “The Old stripper,” “Wind,” “Grandma’s House,” The DACA Bloc and “Black Bodies” free entry and free beer for 21 and over.

A full schedule of screenings and events can be found at Lost River Film Fest's website. Tickets can be purchased ahead of time online.