HCAF ‘24: Interviews with the Programmers at Houston Cinema Arts Festival

One of Houston’s biggest weeks for film is the Houston Cinema Arts Festival. Just wrapping up their 16th year, HCAF has been a cornerstone of the Houston film community. This year, we got a chance to conduct email interviews with HCAF’s programmers: Jazyne Moreno, Michael Robinson, and Michael Sicinski. From finding uniquely Houston stories, to partnering with NASA, to doing a Q&A screening with John Waters, HCAF shows the love the Houston community has for cinema.

The following interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Jazmyne Moreno, Lead Programmer for the Houston Cinema Arts Festival

What does it mean to you personally to have a festival like Houston Cinema Arts Festival?

HCAF has a special place in my heart. It’s scrappy, eclectic, and, I hope, a great showcase for emerging talent. It’s important that this festival exists as not only a celebration of film, but provides a hub for up and coming filmmakers to connect with one another in a creative community that’s growing year after year. The programming speaks to that desire, that need for a centralized network of artists and hopefully provides that for this community.

What are you looking to prioritize as a programmer?

My programming philosophy has always been: know what you’re trying to say, know who you’re talking to. With each audience, each community, comes a different set of challenges to address and for HCAF it all comes down to helping people make meaningful connections with one another. You do this by prioritizing the experience and offering something that an audience is unable to get the other 50 weeks out of the year.

Can you take us through a brief history of your time with HCAF?

The departure of former HCAF lead programmer Jessica Green meant that I had huge shoes to fill. However, as a person I feel that you should leave a mark, an impression to show you were there, so I built on that foundation and took the fest in a different direction as the organization moved forward with a renewed focus on filmmaking. Filmmakers first. Now in my third year, that is my compass for all the work the team does on the festival. 

How do you think festivals like HCAF bolster the Houston community, both filmmaking creatives and the general public? 

I live in Austin, where I co-program at the AFS [Austin Film Society] Cinema with my colleagues Lars Nilsen and Holly Herrick year round. Austin Film Society, Hyperreal Film Club, Future Front, AAAFF, Cine Las Americas and so on and so forth… we’re so lucky, so fortunate to have a space for everyone to create, watch, and connect. The festival offers this in a microcosm with its workshops, talks, networking events, and, of course, movies.   

Do you have a standout, must-see film from the festival? 

As lead programmer, trust that it is not just gentle diplomacy when I say all of it. Theater-goers will soon be able to catch films like Bird and The Black Sea at their local arthouse cinemas and they absolutely should, they’re some of the most unique and unexpectedly healing pieces of filmmaking I have seen all year.  However, works like the French animated freakout Harmonie, and Us And The Night, an experimental love letter to books and their lovers from Audrey Lam, are unlikely to make much headway theatrically. These are the films I push audiences towards. See something new. See something different. See a film with any perspective at all. Take the opportunity, you owe it to yourself. Rats!, Characters Disappearing, Jimmy… I could go on, but needless to say, I love them all. If you happen to miss them, just know that these are filmmakers to follow, so add the films to your watchlist and keep an eye out. I’m sure you’ll hear about them again soon.

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Michael Robinson, Programmer of Borders | No Borders 

Borders | No Borders is a mainstay of HCAF and always a standout. Can you talk to us about the role and responsibility you have in selecting these diverse stories?

I am the programmer for the Borders | No Borders regional short film competition, which means that I head the call for works, the outreach, and filmmaker relations for the program. I've been programming the selection since its inception for our 2020 festival, which has been an exciting trajectory to be a part of. Part of the responsibility of the program is to really highlight narratives from as many qualifying regions as possible. The competition invites filmmakers with ties to Arkansas, Louisiana, Mexico, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas to submit, and I try to make sure we have at least 5 of the 6 regions represented, as well as gender parity across the selection and a majority of directors of color. 

What challenges do you face as a programmer for this section of the festival?

There are a lot of factors to always consider. Film infrastructure looks different in each of these regions, so getting films from one place may be a lot easier than getting films from a region with less short filmmaking networks. There's also only one narrative block and one documentary block, so if a more genre film is submitted and it's really good, it still might not get selected just because of the other films that are slotted for the program. So many of the films deal with very dower subject matters, so balancing the tone of the room can be tricky. But every year, it ends up working out. I have a great handful of volunteers who watch a dozen of the submitted films and give feedback which helps me understand the various vantage points. And I'm terribly grateful to the community partners who have helped me connect with new filmmakers each and every year. 

How are you hoping Borders | No Borders inspires other filmmakers?

Regional stories matter! And deserved to be told, interrogated, parsed out, and examined. It doesn't always have to be about social issues or part of a large scale narrative, but as long as the filmmaking behind the camera is thought through, and the storytelling is coming from a genuine and curious place, then the final film is usually great. I always want young filmmakers to attend the Q&A and see how these directors captured their stories and to hear from their actors and subjects on how that spirit of collaboration proliferated.  

Why do you think documentary films are able to resonate so well with everyone? Do you have a documentary that you think personally resonated with you?

I would push against this–I think documentary films can resonate but I think it's dangerous to assume that the form itself is eliciting something different than any other visual medium. To me, as a programmer, we have to fight against exhibiting film as a political intervention as it's only one step. I think documentary carries the possibility to bring new forms of stories in ways that feel lived and authentic aimed towards audiences so foreign to these ideas otherwise. Audiences have to actively want to understand these issues but also digest it in a way that reflects a level of their world view. I think about the response I've heard for Wild Hogs and Saffron, a film about the filmmaker Andy S reconnecting with his high school friend during a hog hunt in Arkansas where they both grew up. It examines both of their understandings as kids of Andy as an Iranian-American, and the relationship between personal friendships and larger political implications. It resonates with so many people because of the contemporary political landscape and offers some sort of path forward (pure conjecture). But I think the film itself opens itself to welcome many different types of viewing–it's an access point for someone without an Andy in their life to question certain things and possibly relate to Bubba, Andy's friend. 

Personally, I can't pick favorites from the lineup. But I can give mention to powerful moments in some films. I think The Passing by Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan shows how powerful a story within your own neighborhood can be with trust and empathy as driving forces (which are clear ethics they hold in every single film they make). I also want to highlight Hasta Encontrarlos for the use of dolls for the missing children and family members. Film is a cinematic tool and having something to visualize not only loss but also the physical love that these families hold for members who have been gone for 15, 20 years is incredibly powerful.  

Do you have a standout film of the festival you want to talk about?

As a queer film programmer, I love that The Life of Sean DeLear is included in the lineup. It's the sort of film that would have made waves at every single queer film festival across the country and received a specialized release about 10 years ago but the landscape has completely changed. It's a brash and rebellious film that deeply understands what it meant to be a queer rebel when being queer meant trying to survive. It's not an obvious HCAF pick, but I'm thrilled Jazmyne included it in the lineup and I hope people seek it out.

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Michael Sicinski, Programmer for Colors, Nailed to the Mast: New Experimental Cinema

How important is experimental film to you?

It's my area of specialty, so it is fairly important. But one of the things I try to keep in mind while programming these annual shows is that non-narrative or formalist filmmaking is new to many viewers. So I try to provide a balance of different kinds of work, with the hope that there is something for almost everyone.

Do you think there should be a bigger push towards experimental film?

I think that attention spans are shifting toward shorter forms of content. One thing experimental film can offer is a way to use the basic elements of media (light, sound, movement) to give the viewer a lot of information in a brief amount of time. So maybe experimental film can offer possible solutions to problems that artists currently face.

What have you discovered about the film scene in Houston?

It is very diverse, and it appears to be growing. For various reasons, Houston has long been more of a hub for physical arts (painting and sculpture) than media arts, whereas Austin has been more of a location for movie making. But Houston-based filmmakers appear to be carving out a niche, especially with low-budget features and documentaries.

What does it mean to you to have your curated films screening at Rice University?

The team at Rice Cinema are top notch, and working with them is always a pleasure. They appreciate the work and have very exacting technical standards, so I know the films will be presented in the best possible manner.

Do you have a standout film from the festival that you want to highlight?

There's one film I haven't seen yet myself! Jerome Hiler is a well-established filmmaker who doesn't make that many films. He previewed his latest film Careless Passage in New York and the reception was phenomenal. So based on that, and the quality of Jerome's other films, I programmed it sight-unseen. So folks should come to the show and we can discover it together.

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