SEPT. 20, 2002

As if there weren’t enough strangely dressed people milling around UT on a Fall football weekend, this Saturday the 2002 Cinematexas International Film Festival brings German filmmaker/opera lover/shoe eater Werner Herzog to the Texas Union Theater for a lecture and screening of two of his non-fiction works: Lessons of Darkness, which centers around images of the Kuwaiti oil fires and the aftermath of the Gulf War, and Bells from the Deep, a film about faith and superstition in Russia. Herzog will also be holding forth Sunday at 1:30pm at Alamo Drafthouse with screenings of How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck, a film about livestock auctioneers, and The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, about the Swiss wood carver and ski jumper Walter Steiner. To get into the screenings, you’ll need to purchase a Cinematexas Film Pass at Vulcan Video, 33 Degrees, or Waterloo Records ($25 for students, $35 for non) and then hie to The Hideout at 11:00am on Saturday and Sunday respectively to wait in line for passes to the actual screenings. While you’re in line, you can take the opportunity to hobnob with cinephiles from all over and maybe even get a few tips on where to go and what to see on the last two nights. If you can’t get tickets to Saturday or Sunday’s Herzog screenings, you can still catch a mind-numbing variety of shorts through the weekend from Texas and the rest of the planet. Films range from a couple of minutes to just under an hour and cover everything from William Wegman’s Dogs to Brazialian drag singers. If you pick up your film pass early, you can go to screenings throughout the day and night on Thursday and Friday as well. The Festival wraps up Sunday night with the 2002 Cinematexas Awards Ceremony at Club de Ville, a great place to meet some new filmic friends.