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Houston Cinema Arts Festival Experience

Kelly Engler
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Kelly Engler

Kelly Engler takes a selfie with her Houston Cinema Arts Festival press pass.

Kelly Engler, fall intern at The Buzz, attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and graduated from Northwestern University in 2015 with degrees in theatre and psychology. 

The Houston Cinema Arts Festival has ambitiously highlighted Houston as a prominent showcasing spot for digital, media and film artists. The eight-day annual festival takes place at multiple venues throughout Houston and features film premieres, an immersive cinema gallery, documentary and narrative films, live multimedia performances, panel discussions and an awards presentation, which was judged this year by prominent director and film artist Richard Linklater.

I attended the virtual reality cinema gallery on Saturday, featuring artists Maarten Isaäk de Heer and Rachel Rossin. I watched two films, 6x9: A Virtual Experience of Solitary Confinement and Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness on a virtual reality headset with headphones.

Virtual reality gallery

The Oculus virtual reality technology provided a unique, intimate perspective for each viewer at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival’s virtual reality gallery at The Brandon.

The first film was a 9-minute experience of what solitary confinement feels like. The film highlighted the psychological damage that arises from isolation, employing audio from actual prisons and narrations from prisoners previously isolated for years in solitary confinement. 

The second immersive film was a 40-minute interactive, sensory experience of blindness with a narrative by John Hull. The moments in the film were based on Hull’s own memories and stories from his audio diary, featuring stunning visuals that attempt to mimic the interaction of auditory cues and blindness. 

These two experiences were deeply individual. It wasn’t a screen and an audience; it was my personal immersive cinema experience. I chose how to experience the film, what I wanted to look at in the 360-degree exploration space.

Koby Caplan

Koby Caplan views the work of Dutch animation artist Maarten Isaäk de Heer at the virtual reality gallery at The Brandon.

Koby Caplan, a West University resident, commented on the virtual reality gallery, “The [virtual reality technology] provides a unique vehicle to tell a story. It was a powerful medium to convey both solitary confinement and going blind, which are very difficult to describe.”

Last night, a screening of Yarn at Sundance Cinemas featured a wildly different category of film; however, the experience was equally compelling. 

The film follows four artists who employ knitting and crocheting in non-traditional ways – through circus arts, textile playgrounds, graffiti art and avant-garde fashion. I found myself audibly reacting to the whimsy and playfulness of the film and of the yarn art itself. 

Yarn playgrounds

Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam of Net Play Works stitches giant “textile playgrounds” in public spaces around the world. 

Mary Goldsby of Urban Yarnage led a talk-back after the film. She commented, “[These artists] are pushing the envelope with fiber art and where it lives.”

Based on what I’ve seen, I am confident that the Houston Cinema Arts Festival selects only the most thought-provoking and deeply poignant pieces for our community to see and explore, diverse as the selections are. The festival continues through Nov. 17; make sure to check out any of the culminating festival events while you still can!

Nov. 16:

Nov. 17:

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