The Waco Independent Film Festival, aka Waco Indie, will open with the crowd-pleasing road movie Crystal Cross, close with the locally shot Due West, starring Adrianne Palicki and Henry Thomas, and feature a 25th anniversary screening of Richard Kelly’s masterful Donnie Darko.
The lineup, announced Monday, includes four days of screenings, parties, and panels, including a special advanced screening of the locally shot series The Chosen with special guest Elizabeth Tabish, who plays Mary Magdalene. It will feature 148 films in all, including 14 features, 126, and eight music videos.
“This year’s edition of Waco Indie is testament that we can’t stop adding and innovating in our obsession to help our filmmakers in every way we can beyond platforming and celebrating their great work on the big screen, and showcasing Waco itself, both as a host for those incoming filmmakers, as well as an amazing location for them to shoot their next projects,” Waco Indie co-founders and directors Samuel Thomas and Louis Hunter said in a statement.
“We have added venues, we have added potential benefits, and — as we do each and every year — this year’s edition will demonstrate that we never stop building and encouraging the Waco Indie family.”
Waco Indie’s in-theater screenings will take place July 16-19, followed by an online encore July 19-25. The festival was recently named one of MovieMaker’s 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee and 25 Coolest Film Festivals.
Crystal Cross, directed by Richie James Follin, is about a Christian singer in pursuit of fame who embarks on a road trip with a grieving father who bears an intriguing resemblance to Jesus Christ. It won the Audience Award at the Austin Film Festival.
The 25th anniversary Donnie Darko screening will include director of photography Steven Poster, whose work also includes Kelly’s Southland Tales, Randal Kleiser’s Big Top Pee-Wee, Ridley Scott’s Someone to Watch Over Me, and Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video.
Venues include the Palladium, the historic Hippodrome, the Cambria Hotel, Brotherwell, the Grand Masonic Lodge, the Performing Arts Community Center, Southern Roots, Waco Surf, and for the first time, the Waco Civic Center, and the Waco Welcome Center.
Evan Miller’s Due West is about a small-town woman in West Texas who’s forced to break the law in search of medical care. Attendees will include Miller, Palicki, and Waco’s Joey Oglesby.
You can learn more about the festival here.
Main image: Waco Indie filmmakers Natalie Lynch and Tara Jayn dressed as flight attendants in support of their film In The Event at a recent edition of the festival. Photo by Rachel Neckar / Waco Independent Film Festival.