Established in 2011, the OCFF has endured as a summertime tradition in DFW. According to the official announcement of this event, the OCFF showcases "the best of Oak Cliff’s theater and art venues, restaurants, bars and small businesses."
Emphasizing the rich culture of the Oak Cliff part of Dallas is a grand aspect of this annual occasion. However, as its name would imply, the primary draw for OCFF fans is the motion pictures. At this multiday event, patrons can watch special screenings of new films and theatrical repertory screenings of vintage features.
The festival's wide range of films available is reflected in the slogan for the 2024 edition of OCFF: “Movies are all around us ... look around you." Motion pictures are everywhere and come in all types, especially when they play at OCFF.
The 2024 OCFF selections crystallize how far the event has come from its first iteration. In the inaugural 2012 edition of the festival, the opening night OCFF film was the obscure B-movie homage The Ghastly Love of Johnny X. One year later, the OCFF was screening new Joe Swanberg, Bobcat Goldthwait and Andrew Bujalski movies.
Since then, the OCFF has become a buzzy haven for exciting screenings of new features, some of which make their Texas premiere at this festival. It's also a prime opportunity to witness beloved motion pictures from years past on the big screen. OCFF has even become a destination where notable filmmakers stop by for Q&As. Director David Lowery has become an especially exciting fixture of this festival.
The Best of the 2024 Oak Cliff Film Festival
The 2024 Oak Cliff Film Festival has just unveiled its lineup of screenings, which will kick off with the North Texas premiere of music documentary Omar And Cedric: If Things Get Weird. This Nicolas Jack Davies directorial effort, which premiered in March at SXSW, chronicles the expansive friendship of musicians Omar Rodriguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala. The music won’t just stop when the credits begin rolling on If Things Get Weird, though. Texas bands Perdidos and Dezorah will deliver a live Texas Theatre (at 231 W. Jefferson St.) performance after the movie.After If Things Get Weird’s June 20 screening, the OCFF hopes to keep the creative momentum going through Friday’s screenings, when the acclaimed Irish feature Kneecap will have its DFW premiere at the Texas Theatre. The 1922 Danish horror feature Haxan will screen at that same location at 9:30 p.m. Not everything cool at the OCFF on June 21 occurs at the Texas Theatre, though. That same day, a slew of Texas student shorts will screen at the Oak Cliff Assembly at 6:45 p.m. If you're craving even more short film programming that night, you're in luck: A block dubbed "Animated Shorts" will screen at the Bishop Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. that same evening. Whatever cinematic tastes you have, the Oak Cliff Film Festival aims to satisfy them through its first full day of screenings.
A bevy of OCFF screenings will take place on Saturday, June 22. Among those features are the North Texas premieres of Sleep and Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted and the Texas premiere of Fantasy A. Gets a Mattress. Later that day, a live Swamp Dogg and Moogstar performance will take place at the Texas Theatre at 10:00 p.m. Looking for something quieter to do? Consider attending one of the workshops. The Oak Cliff Cultural Center will be home to workshops such as Starting With a Short!! and the Austin Film Society Short Filmmakers Grant Workshop. These aim to offer valuable tips and pointers for budding filmmakers.
June 23, the final day of the OCFF, offers some deeply intriguing screenings. These include the DFW premieres of documentaries Never Look Away and Seeking Mavis Beacon, which will be accompanied by a prerecorded Q&A session with Beacon director Jazmin Renee Jones. For those in the mood for new narrative releases, recent film festival favorites Janet Planet and Between the Temples will also be showing in the late afternoon and evening, respectively, at the Texas Theatre. Temples will have an important role as the festival's closing night film.
Sunday will also see two notable repertory screenings. The first is a Texas Theatre showing of the 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, an eternally relevant profile of an LGBTQIA+ trailblazer. Later that day, the Bishop Arts Theater Center will screen the 1963 Vojtěch Jasný movie The Cassandra Cat. A batch of documentary shorts and a second crop of narrative shorts will also be showing throughout the day at the Kessler Theater.
Examining the 2024 lineup of the OCFF (which includes even more movies), this collection of films seems par for the course (in the best way possible) for what people expect from the prestigious festival. Its mixture of new releases and a sprinkling of repertory screenings is alive and well.
What’s especially comforting about this year’s OCFF proceedings is the emphasis on the filmmakers of tomorrow. The COVID-19 pandemic might have initially threatened the end of theaters, and traditional cinema's future once looked bleaker than the ending of The Road, but the 2024 OCFF shows the medium isn’t going anywhere after all.
Nothing in this year's schedule promises to be as momentous as the 2019 OCFF hosting the Texas premieres of Yesterday and The Farewell, but not every iteration of the festival can compare to that special year. In terms of tradition, the 2024 crop of films fits right into the festival's legacy. The presence of Haxan among the repertory screenings is particularly remarkable and echoes the festival's previous screening of fellow 1920s silent film masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc in 2018. How lovely to see OCFF constantly offer patrons accessibility to silent cinema on the big screen.
For the full lineup of movies playing at the 2024 Oak Cliff Film Festival, visit ocff2024.eventive.org/films.
