The Big Screen

In the past few weeks, Dallas Sonnier pulled off an impressive feat by bringing his film "Dragged Across Concrete" to the Venice Film Festival and then turning around a week later and taking "The Standoff at Sparrow Creek" to the Toronto International Film Festival. The producer joins us to talk about sharing those films with the world - and about basing his production company, Cinestate, here in North Texas.

From "Singin' in the Rain" to "Saturday Night Fever," "Dirty Dancing" and "La La Land," dance has made its way into countless Hollywood classics. An event this weekend celebrates how these two art forms complement one another, which we talk about with Danielle Georgiou, whose short film and choreography will be featured.

Artist Frank Reaugh lived and worked in Dallas through the first half of the 20th Century. And his pictures of longhorn steers roaming the landscape helped to define Texas at the time. This week, we talk about Reaugh's legacy, the subject of the documentary "Frank Reaugh: Pastel Poet of the Texas Plains." It airs Thursday night at 10 p.m. on KERA-TV as part of the new season of Frame of Mind, curated by Bart Weiss, who joins us for the conversation.

For the last decade, Josephine Decker has made the festival circuit with her short films and documentaries (we first talked with her at SXSW way back in 2009). And now, with her third feature - called "Madeline's Madeline," she's getting the attention of major critics and earning raves in the process. This week, we talk with the Highland Park native about her big break - and about her next project starring Elizabeth Moss.

Blaze Foley is a name only diehard music lovers are familiar with. But if you're a fan of Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt or John Prine, you're a fan of Foley's. A new movie about the Austin singer-songwriter's life opens this weekend, and we sat down with its writer, director and native Texan, Ethan Hawke to talk about it.

Appalachia is seen as one of the keys to President Trump's 2016 victories. And since then, scholars and historians have turned their attention to the often overlooked region. Appalachia and the stereotypes about it are explored in a new documentary called "Hillbilly" playing the Women Texas Film Festival, and this week, we talk with Justina Walford, the fest's artistic director.

"Hillbilly" screens Saturday afternoon at 2:30 at the Studio Movie Grill Spring Valley and will be followed by a Q&A with director Ashley York.

In the "Never Goin' Back," a pair of hard-partying teenage girls dream of hitting the beach. Instead, their lives are consumed with keeping their heads above water as they struggle to make rent. The film has made the rounds on the festival circuit, debuting at Sundance before slots at SXSW and the Oak Cliff Film Festival. It's collected some nice reviews along the way. And now, it's finally out. This week, we talk with Augustine Frizzell, its Dallas-based director, about telling a story she once lived.

Guitar players the world over idolize Stevie Ray Vaughan. But the guitar player he idolized was his big brother, Jimmie. The Oak Cliff natives are the subject of a new documentary called "From Nowhere: The Story of the Vaughan Brothers," and this week we talk with director Kirby Warnock, who covered the duo from their earliest days through their rise to fame. His film screens Thursday and Friday night at the Texas Theatre, just blocks from where they grew up.

Santos Rodriguez was just 12 years old when he was murdered in the backseat of a Dallas Police car. A new documentary called "Santos Vive" marks the 45 anniversary of that day, and this week we talk with its director, Byron Hunter. For more on efforts to memorialize Santos, take a listen to KERA's Stella Chavez's report from earlier this week.

Every year, the Asian Film Festival of Dallas shows selections from Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. This year's festival looks beyond those traditional hotbeds, by including a movie from Kashmir. We preview this year's event, which also includes the repertory favorites "Tokyo Drifter and "Yi Yi."