The thirty first annual San Antonio Movie Competition (SAFILM) says this 12 months’s occasion will display extra motion pictures at extra venues than ever. The weeklong indie showcase, going down July 22-27, might be a cinema buff’s dream with tons of screenings, panels, and particular celeb friends that spotlight Alamo Metropolis’s rising leisure trade.
In accordance with a information launch, this summer season’s SAFILM will unfold at 4 venues. Three websites are in downtown: Tobin Heart for the Performing Arts, the adjoining Radius Heart, and the close by Malu and Carlos Alvarez Theater at Texas Public Radio. A brand new venue, EVO Leisure Schertz, has been added for movie followers on the Northeast Aspect.
Based in 1994, the competition has grown to turn out to be one of many largest in Central Texas. The six whole screens will showcase greater than 200 characteristic, quick, documentary, scholar, native, and worldwide movies.
Shaquille O’Neal will obtain the Texas Yanaguana Award. Picture by Rick Kern/Getty Pictures for Icy Scorching
Competition highlightsThe movie competition will kick off July 22 with two characteristic motion pictures and a block of quick movies with solid and crew in attendance. The Wasps, government produced by Austin director Richard Linklater, is a bawdy satire tailored from an historical Aristophanes play whereas drama The Compatriots explores a friendship between an undocumented immigrant going through deportation and his long-lost finest good friend. A Actual Thrill, a block of thriller shorts comparable to Prison Intentions, Folks Stroll Canine Late at Evening within the Suburbs, and Ten of Swords, digs into America’s seedy underbelly.
On July 25, SAFILM will honor actor/producer Matthew Modine with a Lifetime Achievement Award on the Tobin Heart. Modine’s cinematic profession spans greater than 40 years, and contains roles in notable hits like Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam Struggle epic Full Metallic Jacket, Imaginative and prescient Quest, Married to the Mob, And the Band Performed On, and Stranger Issues.
Modine has a breakneck schedule through the competition. The actor will co-host a screening of a documentary that he executively produced, delving into the rising relationship between humanity and synthetic intelligence. He may even be part of Full Metallic Jacket co-star Sal Lopez for a panel, moderated by movie producer Elizabeth Avellán, discussing the movie’s lasting cultural impression.
The competition’s founder himself would be the topic of Rocha: The Adam Rocha Story, a documentary about his life and his impression on San Antonio and Texas’ movie communities. The film will display July 23 on the Tobin Heart.
The competition wraps up July 27 with a purple carpet awards ceremony the place NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal will obtain the Texas Yanaguana Award, an honor given for particular person contributions to movie and the humanities. The Kazaam star has deep connections to San Antonio from when his father was stationed at what’s now Joint Base Fort Sam Houston. And he spent his teenage years honing his basketball expertise at Cole Excessive College, which he led to a state championship in 1989.
Adam Rocha, the competition’s founder, is the topic of a brand new documentary.Picture courtesy of San Antonio Movie Competition.
A rising industryRocha says SAFILM just isn’t solely a enjoyable manner for film followers to look at cinematic works created by established and up-and-coming native and Texas filmmakers, however a strategy to higher join members of Texas’ group of movie and tv present makers.
The Lone Star State movie and TV group is certain to get a lift, Rocha says, due to newly handed laws that may pump billions of {dollars} into incentives designed to lure extra movie and TV productions to Texas and encourage much more homegrown tasks. In Could, the Texas Senate handed Senate Invoice 22, which amongst different issues will put aside $300 million each two years for the subsequent 10 years to buoy Texas’ transferring image trade.
Beginning September 1, 2025, Texas Shifting Picture Trade Program, which makes out there money grants based mostly on a share of the quantity that an eligible manufacturing spends in Texas, will prolong its most grant to 31%. The state incentives program is along with any native manufacturing incentives that is likely to be supplied by native cities and counties.
Rocha says these strikes show that Texas is severe about eager to be a vacation spot for corporations that make motion pictures, TV exhibits, commercials and different transferring picture productions. For San Antonio, which means extra productions will select the Alamo Metropolis for its distinctive areas, gifted native crews, and town’s personal movie incentives.
“This may carry in additional movie tasks, which implies extra jobs and more cash flowing into our native economic system,” he says. “Productions may even be required to rent extra Texas-based crew — going from 35 p.c to 50 p.c — creating actual profession alternatives for individuals proper right here in San Antonio.”
Rocha says, as a highschool media trainer, that is an thrilling time to be a part of Texas’ movie trade, particularly for younger and rising artists.
“It means our college students can stay up for actual careers in media, proper right here at house. They received’t have to go away Texas to seek out work in movie and tv,” he says. “As an alternative of transferring to locations like Georgia, New Mexico, or California, they’ll keep and construct their future right here.”
Over the a long time, San Antonio has hosted huge Hollywood productions comparable to Selena, Miss Congeniality, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Spy Children, Pee-Wee’s Large Journey, and the Yellowstone prequel 1923. Wings, the very first Finest Image Oscar winner, was even shot right here.
“[W]ith state and metropolis incentives that stack collectively — together with bonus applications for hiring veterans, filming at historic websites, and dealing with native associate — San Antonio turns into one of the crucial engaging cities within the nation for movie manufacturing,” Rocha says.
Competition detailsFor a full checklist of SAFILM screenings and particular occasions, seek the advice of the web calendar. Particular person day passes promote for $52.86 and a weekend badge, overlaying July 26-27, prices $104.83. Particular person tickets might be out there to the screenings, however preferential seating might be granted to VIP friends.
The VIP packages, bought at $146.40 to the general public and $103.80 for college students contains entry to all competition occasions, panels, screenings, and meet-and-greets. Passholders additionally get entry to a particular VIP lounge.
