Fifteen years ago, the Oak Cliff Film Festival set out to do something different.
Instead of chasing Hollywood premieres or celebrity spectacle, organizers built a neighborhood festival that celebrates filmmakers willing to share stories that challenge audiences, experiment with form and often don't fit neatly into the traditional festival circuit.
That mission continues this weekend as the festival celebrates its 15th anniversary with four days of screenings, live performances and filmmaker conversations across Oak Cliff.
"The whole goal is to champion brave independent filmmaking while fostering a film community," said Ashton Campbell, the festival's director. "We're really trying to build the film community in Dallas, particularly in Oak Cliff."
Since its founding, the festival has become known for programming that defies easy categorization. This year's lineup reflects that philosophy.
Opening night features director Joe Swanberg's The Sun Never Sets. The festival also includes a live musical performance accompanying the 1926 animated classic The Adventures of Prince Achmed, a retrospective screening of Pulp Fiction with Academy Award-winning co-writer Roger Avary, documentaries exploring MTV's The Buzz and the band Los Lobos, and grants supporting emerging North Texas filmmakers.
Independent cinema of all stripes
For Campbell, the festival isn't defined by genre.
"Our tagline this year is 'celebrating independent cinema of all stripes,'" he said. "I think that's a really good description of what we do."
That approach has attracted filmmakers from around the world while remaining rooted in Oak Cliff. Among this year's selections is When We Were Live , a documentary by Austin filmmaker John Moore that reconstructs the city's public access television scene entirely through archival footage.
The film follows drag performers, activists, musicians and late-night television personalities who used community television decades before YouTube, podcasts and TikTok gave anyone with a camera a platform.
"It was kind of the pre-YouTube, pre-social media generation," Moore said. "There was this phenomenon known as public access television where people could publish themselves long before social media existed."
Into the archives
Moore originally expected to make a short documentary.
Instead, one interview led to another, with former show hosts handing him boxes of videotapes that had gone untouched for decades. Eventually, Moore realized the archives themselves could tell the story.
Rather than filming contemporary interviews, When We Were Live unfolds almost entirely through recovered footage, placing viewers inside Austin's eccentric media landscape of the 1980s.
The documentary also reveals how public access became more than quirky late-night television.
For drag performer Carmen Banana, the platform became a way to speak to audiences during the AIDS crisis. Chicano activist Gilberto Rivera documented neighborhood displacement and organized against white supremacist demonstrations. Others simply created spaces where local communities could see themselves reflected on television.
"So many of the issues these people were talking about still exist today," Moore said. "But I also hope people walk away thinking, 'If people back in 1983 could do something this creative, why can't I?'"
That spirit of experimentation is exactly what Campbell hopes audiences discover throughout the festival.
"It's really rewarding when filmmakers come here and rave about their experience," he said. "We want them on the ground, hanging out with audiences, experiencing the festival. That's who we are."
And after 15 years, Campbell says the festival's greatest success isn't simply the films it screens; it's the community that's grown around them.
"When local businesses are reaching out asking how they can help, it tells me we're doing something right," he said. "This is such an artistic community, and hopefully we're bringing people here to see everything Oak Cliff has to offer."
Details: The Oak Cliff Film Festival runs July 30 - Aug 2 at multiple locations. Individual tickets start at $15. When We Were Live screens at 4 p.m. Aug 2 at Bishop Arts Theatre Center.
