Marfa Film Festival 2009

This documentary masterpiece from 1979 chronicles the lives of two South Bronx street gangs, The Savage Nomads and The Savage Skulls. Directed by Gary Weis (The Rutles, Saturday Day Night Live) and beautifully photographed by Joan Churchill (Punishment Park, Gimme Shelter), the film follows the gang members, community activists, and the cops who chase them through the mean streets of Fort Apache, the South Bronx. Produced by Lorne Michaels and based on an Esquire article by Jon Bradshaw, the film is a poignant slice of life in the toughest ghetto in the US, and filled with a remarkable amount of levity. This screening will be the World Premiere of the newly restored master of the film, which has not seen the light of day since its completion in 1980. The director Gary Weis will be at the screening for a Q & A following the film. Note: While this film is not rated, it contains language that is is explicit, harsh and vulgar, and may be considered shocking and offensive. It is not recommended for children. Program curated by David Hollander. Special thanks to Broadway Video and Traffic Entertainment.

Join Ledo and Ix on their existential buddy ride down the fraught-filled paths of a video game adventure. A wonderfully realized little tale, with appropriately crude animation, the film puts us in the boat (once literally) with these brave and not-so-brave little characters and gives us a brand new perspective on fear of the unknown.

When we say surreal musical space western, that's just what we mean. Cory McAbee writes, directs, composes (this his band) and stars in this wild and weird underground cinema classic from 2001. Incredible black and white photography and fantastic low-budget set pieces and effects make for an inspiring adventure into the realms of possibility and plausibility in film. Come one, come all, the girls from Venus are calling. Free midnight screening!

A completely original, deeply loopy, low brow art film told in three parts, featuring non-professional actors in all but one lead role (the director's wonderfully talented daughter). See rednecks, racists and fools navigate the weird waters of "penance, loss and ignorance" (chapters of the film) in the good old south, USA. This gorgeously framed film spilled straight from the brain of director Chusy to win a Special Jury Prize at Sundance, and bring off-beat to another plane of strange.

A guy looks for a girl who can stand a little strangeness in his room. Is he a fool or a man confident that fate will satisfy his needs in love?

Tremendous stop motion design and photography capture an old bird up to new tricks in this strange and strangely sinister little short. We always root for the bird to fly, but this is no regular bird, sweetly singing and darting. He's got a plan.

This legendary film written, directed and starring Wendell B. Harris arrived like a lightening bolt in the dark twenty years ago and disappeared just as quickly. After years of (equally legendary) banging on studio doors and countless meetings suffering actors from Arsenio Hall to Will Smith trying to remake his movie -- Smith has repeatedly "borrowed" from a rubik's cube scene in this film -- Harris finally packed his bags and headed back to Michigan, cementing his status as a cult hero. The film tells the mostly true story of Detroit con artist and high school drop-out William Douglas Street, Jr. who successfully impersonated professional reporters, lawyers, athletes, extortionists, and surgeons (he performed more than 36 successful hysterectomies!). A biting satire, it was one of the first films to examine how race, class, and role-playing morph into the social fabric of contemporary America, and perhaps the first film ever to spotlight an African American man deftly skating over the strange ice of white guilt (here, professional), a prescient precursor to our "post racial" culture. Chameleon Street won the Grand Jury Prize at 1990 Sundance Film Festival. Director Wendell B. Harris will be in Marfa to show his film for the first time in the state of Texas. Thanks to Jon Ausbrook for his assistance with this program.

A little down home celebrating with turtle races, chicken^%$ bingo, beer, food, mariachis and more at the Presideo County Courthouse downtown, Sunday, 5-9.

Join Pulitzer Prize and Oscar-winner Larry McMurtry for coffee and questions about his life and career. An intimate visit with a brilliant and often reclusive author and legend. Larry will be joined by his writing partner and fellow Oscar-winner (for "Brokeback Mountain") Diana Ossana.