For as long as anyone can remember, Marfa, Texas has been known for two things. It’s the home of the Marfa Lights, those mysterious glowing blobs that could be paranormal entities, swamp gas or car headlights, depending on who you ask. And it’s the little town where George Stevens, James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor made Giant more than fifty years ago.
In the last year or so, however, Marfa has enhanced its cinematic pedigree considerably. Both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood were shot there, accounting for 40 percent of your 2007 Best Picture nominees, 16 nominations total, and six Oscars between them. Yet Marfa doesn’t even have its own movie theater.
Starting May 1st, however, it does have its own film festival. The first annual Marfa Film Festival will open with a screening of There Will Be Blood on the set where it was made, “just south of Marfa on the McGuire Ranch. Though some small parts of the set will remain after the event, the town (where we will screen) will soon be torn down, as the West Texas winds are already taking their toll on the scenic construction.” The closing night film on May 5th will be The Last Movie, Dennis Hopper’s notorious follow-up to Easy Rider, which Hopper will present in person. This will apparently be his first return to Marfa since shooting Giant.
The rest of the festival selections range from Texas-shot documentaries recently screened at SXSW (including Crawford and Tulia, Texas) to David Byrne’s Texas-lensed 1986 feature True Stories to films with no Texas connection at all, like the 1961 British horror classic The Innocents. The festival will also feature the world premiere to what may be the least likely sequel of all-time: Okie Noodling 2, the follow-up to the 2001 documentary about hillbillies who pull giant catfish out of holes with their hands. Apparently there’s even more to learn about this bizarre tradition, and I, for one, am intrigued.
You can check out the rest of the schedule and buy tickets here.
