The Oak Cliff Film Festival (OCFF), which begins on Thursday and runs through Sunday, has a 13-year history of bringing engaging, challenging, and hard-to-categorize films to North Texas. The fest continues that tradition in 2024, delivering a selection of 27 features and 58 short films from around the world.
With so much cinema packed into four days, it can be difficult to decide which movies you want to watch. Below are six films screening as part of OCFF 2024 that are representative of the festival’s tastes while also standing out with their unique, provocative, or inspiring premises.
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Booger
Booger, the directorial debut from Brooklyn-based, Dallas-native Mary Dauterman, defies easy classification. “It’s definitely a genre mashup that’s a little bit hard to explain,” says the director, who had the initial idea for the project in 2019. “But it’s a body horror comedy about a woman who is grieving her best friend and searching for her missing cat while she might be…turning into a creature.”
While this is Dauterman’s first feature, she’s no stranger to filmmaking or other creative pursuits. Her website calls out her experience publishing children’s books “that aren’t for kids”. She co-invented the Tortilla Towel, a “viral beach accessory.” She’s also worked on projects for Adult Swim and directed short films that helped prepare her for the process of writing and directing Booger.
Thanks to its transformative body horror elements, Booger features some involved makeup and prosthetics work, which added an extra layer of complexity to the challenge of making a debut feature. “I really could have made it easier on myself,” says Dauterman. “But…the work I was doing kind of verged on the supernatural or the strange. Like, my short films were often programmed into midnight blocks, and I got asked to do some stuff with Adult Swim that’s very…strange.”
“And then, in the writing of this film, I was like, ‘This is such a powerful way to convey emotion where I can take these leaps and bounds that leave reality, but hopefully hit emotionally even harder,” she says. “I guess it is…to me exciting to leave reality and to push a story in that way. And for my first film, I definitely wanted to bring this visual element into the storytelling as strong as I could, while kind of making it achievable.”
Dauterman says Booger’s influences range from body horror maestros like David Cronenberg (Videodrome, The Fly) and Julia Ducournau (Raw, Titane) to specific movies like 2010’s psychological horror film Black Swan and the 2012 comedy-drama Frances Ha.
“It’s a movie for people who are definitely looking for something unexpected,” says Dauterman. “And I hope that it’s shocking and funny and emotional in all the right ways. But I would say, like, don’t eat during it.” — Austin Zook
Booger screens Saturday, June 22, at 3:45pm at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center.
Love and Work
Rather than a character or a theme, Pete Ohs started his most recent film with a space. It was a rather nondescript one, too—an abandoned department store building in Corsciana.
That became the unlikely setting for Love and Work, a quirky micro-budget drama that will have its Texas premiere this weekend as part of the Oak Cliff Film Festival. So how did a filmmaker who grew up in small-town Ohio become enamored with warehouses and back alleys in Navarro County? It began in 2016, when Ohs was in post-production on his first feature and contemplating his next project.
A friend from Texas referred him to an artist-in-writing residency program sponsored by 100 West, an artist collective based in Corsicana.
“It arrived in my feed at the right moment, so I thought it was something I should try,” Ohs said. “I had never heard of it before, but I spent a month there writing, and learned that I don’t really like writing residencies. But what I took away with it was this beautiful group of people.”
Ohs visited a few more times and grew fond of the area. About three years ago, 100 West acquired an old structure for purposes of preservation and providing artists with a creative or exhibition space. To him, it resembled a factory from the 1920s, and suddenly, an idea hatched. Ohs developed the project with lead actress Stephanie Hunt, who lives in Austin.
“If you give me a sandbox to play in, I will be happy,” said Ohs, who will attend the Dallas screening and participate in Q&A. “I took that idea and ran with it.”
The story is set in an alternate past, when two shoe factory employees (Hunt and Will Madden) enjoy their jobs and thrive—except they live in a polarized world where traditional work is outlawed. Given the pandemic was still active at the time, Ohs wanted to explore how the nature of work was being redefined for many people, creating an uncertain future. The film spins that through exaggerations and by shifting time backward.
Ohs didn’t have a full script, rather a rough outline, when he arrived in Corsicana last spring for two weeks of filming. He would most often write scenes each night to film the next day. He found the spontaneity rewarding.
“That allows lots of freedom to react to what the reality is,” Ohs said. “We know how the movie is going to start. We don’t know how it’s going to end.”
That process enables adjustments on the fly. For example, Ohs met Corsicana resident and retired Shakespearean actor John S. Davies and wrote a part for him. Given that it’s a period piece of sorts, Love and Work was shot in black-and-white, with no modern cars or amenities, again facilitated by the locations around the city’s historic downtown.
“If you film in the alleys behind the buildings, there’s no cars and no signs, and you feel like you’re on a Hollywood backlot,” he said. “Literally there’s no one around.” — Todd Jorgenson
Love and Work screens at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 22, at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center.
Fantasy A Gets A Mattress
This is a unique film, even by OCFF standards. The movie was reportedly made over several years on a micro budget of $3,800 and stars a Seattle rapper with autism named Fantasy A, who plays himself in a story loosely based on his real-life experiences. The film follows Fantasy A after he’s kicked out of his group home for missing curfew on an odyssey through Seattle as he attempts to find a mattress and get a good night’s sleep. — A.Z.
Fantasy A Gets A Mattress screens Saturday, June 22, at 5:45pm at the Texas Theatre.
Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted
If you don’t know Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams, Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted is a winning introduction to a musician who has become a cult icon. Audiences are treated to conversations between Swamp Dogg and his housemates, Moogstar and Guitar Shorty, while (of course) Swamp Dogg’s pool is painted. It’s an opportunity to reflect on decades of music history and the subjects’ artistry, and also features Swamp Dogg admirers like Johnny Knoxville and Tom Kenny. OCFF will also host a live Behind the Screen performance after the film by Swamp Dogg and Moogstar, who are attending the screening alongside directors Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson. — A.Z.
Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted screens Saturday, June 22, at 8 p.m. at the Texas Theatre with the Behind The Screen show to follow.
The Vourdalak
A French horror-drama film based on a short story by Russian writer A.K. Tolstoy, The Vourdalak is a vampire movie with a twist. Shot on Super 16mm film, The Vourdalak uses a marionette to play the part of its titular monster (who is voiced by director Adrien Beau). It’s the kind of film OCFF revels in bringing to audiences, celebrating both craftsmanship and cinematic experimentation. Prior to the screening, audiences can catch a demonstration by North Texas’s own Le Theatre de Marionette, complementing the puppetry on display in the film itself. — A.Z.
The Vourdalak screens Friday, June 21, at 9:45pm at the Texas Theatre.
We Clap for Airballs
Dallas filmmaker Sai Selvarajan’s We Clap for Airballs is a documentary short about the impact of Swish, a basketball group in Chicago (sponsored by the Chicago Bulls) that provides a “brave space” for queer and trans BIPOC individuals. The group’s use of “brave space” (as opposed to “safe space”) is intentional, as they aim to cultivate an atmosphere of accountability where members can have open and honest conversations if someone misgenders someone or otherwise makes another member uncomfortable.
Selvarajan was turned onto Swish via Instagram, and realized while watching their videos that the group had a story that should be told. “It showed up on my Instagram feed,” he says. “I just thought it was a very positive, kind of grassroots effort at, like, positivity and community and healing.” He ultimately connected with the group directly and filmed We Clap for Airballs in 2023.
The documentary takes its title from one of the core tenets of Swish: celebrating showing up. Even if someone takes a shot and misses, players clap for the attempt. We Clap for Airballs allows members of Swish to speak to their own experiences of how Swish has served as a positive outlet for them, and does so in a way that’s visually engaging. Selvarajan uses a suite of dynamic editing techniques to give the film a sense of character and liveliness that complements its subject without overshadowing the stories being shared.
“I think for a lot of queer people and trans people…they don’t get to be themselves, you know, the whole week,” says Selvarajan. “And I think this couple of hours on a Sunday when they meet up and play is…for a few of those people, like, the only time…they’re seen, they’re heard, they get to be themselves, you know. They don’t have to, like, wear a mask.”
To Selvarajan, one of the main things Swish does is help combat isolation and loneliness for its community “in a holistic way.” He explains that Swish is not an exclusionary group and wants to welcome anyone looking for fellowship or a sense of community. “It’s like an all-skill-level thing, you know, so, like, you don’t even have to like basketball or have played it… You show up and…it’s just a fun thing. When we were there to shoot [the documentary] the happiness and the joy was palpable and it was really cool to see that happen.”
While filming, Selvarajan witnessed the group’s impact firsthand: “You saw people coming in for the first time who were kind of scared, and then, you know, after the meetup, were totally comfortable in their skin and themselves.” — A.Z.
We Clap for Airballs screens as part of OCFF’s Documentary Shorts block on Sunday, June 23, at 3 p.m. at the Kessler Theater.
- The opening night feature is Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird, a documentary about At the Drive-In and Mars Volta musicians Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala.
- The documentary lineup includes Ultimate Citizens, about an Seattle guidance counselor from Iran who passes on his love of all things Frisbee to refugee and immigrant children.
- Sneak previews of a few indie films due in theaters this summer, including Janet Planet from A24, plus Kneecap and Between the Temples from Sony Pictures Classics. — T.J.
Authors
Austin Zook
