This multi-day homage to motion pictures wasn’t as lavish in scope compared to other major fall cinema events happening then in New York City or Toronto. But for many local movie nerds, it was more than enough. NTXFF gave those Texans a grand cinematic celebration in their own backyard, complete with screenings of movies that wouldn’t drop in theaters for months.
The festival went off smoothly and created plenty of unforgettable memories for its participants. Surely such a celebration would become a new annual DFW tradition. Alas, NTXFF has yet to rear its head again.
There are plenty of reasons why this festival needs to take a cue from the Backstreet Boys and be “back.” Unfortunately, there are equally hefty factors making it unlikely NTXFF will light up movie theater screens again.
NTXFF ran into problems that plague many film festivals aiming for longevity. This worldwide phenomenon is well planted on the radar of Dallas Film Council Film Commissioner Tony Armer, who has spent multiple decades running the Florida-based event The Sunscreen Film Festival. Because of this experience, he's well-versed in the ups and downs film festivals go through.
“There are close to 12,000 film festivals worldwide,” Armer says, “and most of them don’t last past their third year.”
The outcome of NTXFF wasn’t surprising to the film festival vet, given the Texas-based competition it faced. From Armer’s point of view, the Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF) was a big competitor. This springtime event presented a challenge, given “a long history, [being] very well established and very respected in the industry.”
This status likely undercut the relevance of NTXFF.
The fact that NTXFF never returned wasn’t an unexpected development, but something ingrained into the very fabric of the proceedings. Beth Wilbins, the current CEO of DIFF, says: “The North Texas Film Festival was a one-time event presented by Dallas Film and it was designed to broaden our audience and create awareness in far North Dallas.”
There were no attempts to have the NTXFF last longer than its initial appearance. You can thank the real world for that.
“The festival was held in 2019,” Wilbins says. “And the world changed soon after that.”
That “change,” of course, came in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down movie theaters just six months after the inaugural run of the NTXFF. North Texas multiplexes began reopening in June 2020, but launching another edition of the NTXFF in COVID circumstances would be impossible. You just wouldn’t be able to get enough people into theaters to justify the pricey affair. Meanwhile, there’d be no chance for eye-catching red-carpet events in an age of social distancing.
Missing out on the potential of an immediate follow-up edition of NTXFF wiped the event off the map. And when things settled down for movie theaters in 2022 and 2023, other long-running DFW film festivals made their comebacks. The nascent NTXFF was left in the past, thus fulfilling its initial purpose as a one-off curiosity. That’s a crying shame, since this festival offered many advantages for DFW film fans.
May the Best Fest Win
As Armer noted, DIFF cast a large shadow from which NTXFF would always struggle to emerge. However, the latter event had one sizeable advantage: playing out in the fall. This is the time of the year when film festival fever is in high gear. Major events like the Toronto International Film Festival house buzzy premieres of the year's biggest award season contenders. What’s with that timing? Well, folks vote on big award shows in the final weeks of the year. Recognizing this, studios want their projects fresh on the minds of voters. This means screenings of those acclaimed titles are often largely only available in the final months of the year. This precludes DIFF from housing a slew of potential Oscar juggernauts.
That wasn’t an issue for NTXFF. Its late September date made it perfect to screen 2019 awards contenders such as Marriage Story, Clemency and Dolemite Is My Name, a dream come true for those living closer to Plano than to Cannes.
Before 2019, Dallas residents had to travel to the Austin Film Festival in late October for a taste of the glossy film festival life. Events like the Telluride Film Festival, where movie stars and splashy premieres congregate, might as well happen on a different planet. For one shining moment in 2019, though, this had all changed. Finally, a mini-version of events like the Venice Film Festival was accessible in one’s backyard. Dallas film geeks had a greater opportunity than ever to join in on the buzziest conversations on new cinema.
Having NTXFF play out in autumn did more than allow it to mirror bigger global movie events. It also gave the proceedings a distinct identity compared to other Dallas film festivals. Such exploits typically occur in the first half of a calendar year. That schedule offers celebrations such as the Oak Cliff Film Festival several advantages and provides avid moviegoers with a dose of indie cinema during a time of the year dominated by blockbusters.
NTXFF’s late September timing gave it a unique atmosphere. Holding the event so close to October also allowed NTXFF to lean into the innately ooky-spooky vibes of autumn, making special Fangoria-sponsored screenings of Re-Animator and Poltergeist extra fun and timely. It's always a riot to see those titles in the theater, and it’s especially delightful when those big-screen experiences feed into a larger Halloween celebration. You couldn’t get that kind of thrilling timing with other Dallas film festivals happening earlier in the year.
Having a festival lineup that could embrace Re-Animator and Clemency epitomized NTXFF's greatest strength: It crystallized the endless variety of cinema. There is no limit to what you can do with filmmaking, just as there's no finite amount of visuals or themes to be explored in cinema. Even when you think you’ve seen it all, some unknown film emerges to rekindle your love for the medium. The expansive array of movies played during the NTXFF wasn’t necessarily built to accentuate this idea, but it showcased features motivated by the simultaneous occurrence of award season and Halloween.
In trying to be timely, NTXFF became a glorious microcosm of cinema’s boundless versatility. That feat made the festival a special experience for its attendees — especially since it now appears to be a one-and-done. As this collection of screenings drifts further into the past, it’s easier to become increasingly wistful over NTXFF's virtues. Even confining nearly all the screenings to just one movie theater was laudable. Because of this trait, NTXFF was so much easier to navigate than other more sprawling festivals.
Dallas moviegoers desperately deserve to see the North Texas Film Festival return. Even if the credits have rolled on this event, its virtues will hopefully live on. Perhaps they'll even inspire a “sequel” of sorts in the form of other future DFW film festivals. And film people just love a good sequel.
