The Oklahoma City Museum of Art is proud to be a venue for the 22nd Annual deadCenter Film Festival, June 10-12! As Oklahoma’s largest film festival, deadCenter is the best place to see exciting new short films, insightful documentaries, hilarious comedies, hair-raising thrillers, terrifying movies, and the best independent films from around the world and all over Oklahoma.
See the list below for the lineup of deadCenter titles screening in OKCMOA’s Noble Theater. To learn more about deadCenter, view the full festival schedule or purchase a pass, visit: https://dcff22.eventive.org/
Friday, June 10
5:30 pm: Eternal Spring (長春)
Facing denunciations of their banned faith in the Chinese state media, an engineer named Liang and a hulking grain worker called “Big Truck” execute a bold and perilous plan to hack into state television. In the aftermath, police raids sweep Changchun City, and illustrator Daxiong (Justice League, Star Wars), is forced to flee. He arrives in North America, blaming the hijacking for worsening violent repression. But his views about the TV hijacking are challenged when he meets the lone surviving participant to has escaped China, now living in Seoul. Daxiong uses his art to retrace the event–bringing to life an unprecedented story of defiance, harrowing eyewitness accounts of persecution, and an inspiring tale of determination in the face of injustice.
Jason Loftus | Documentary Feature | 86 minutes | English, Chinese | 2022
8 pm: The Braves
Best friends Alma and Margot are inseparable, whether it’s terrorizing cheating lovers or crashing wedding parties. The two women also share the same dream of a successful career on the stage. They get one step closer when they are cast as lead and understudy in a high-profile play in Paris. Alma is keeping a secret that puts her role in jeopardy, but with the unwavering support of Margot, they will try their best to ensure that the show goes on.
Anaïs Volpé | Narrative Feature | 99 minutes | French | 2022
Saturday, June 11
10 am: Oklahoma Film + Music Office Panel Series: Indie Film 101: Breakthroughs on a Budget
11 am: Oklahoma Film + Music Office Panel Series: Storytellers: Defining Documentaries
12 pm: Oklahoma Film + Music Office Panel Series: Cast & Crew: Making it in the Movies
1 pm: Oklahoma Film + Music Office Panel Series: Gamechangers: Television in Oklahoma
2 pm: Mama Bears (Followed by Mama Bears panel at 3:45 pm)
Mama Bears is an exploration of the journeys taken by Sara Cunningham and Kimberly Shappley, two “mama bears”—conservative, Christian mothers whose profound love for their LGBTQ+ children has turned them into fierce advocates for the entire queer community—and Tammi Terrell Morris, a young African American lesbian whose struggle for self-acceptance perfectly exemplifies why the mama bears are so vitally important. Shot in a poetic, deeply intimate style, Mam Bears uses social media posts, home movies, photographs, interviews, and cinema verité footage to explore the complex intersections of politics, religion, faith, and true, unconditional love.
Daresha Kyi | Documentary Feature | 90 minutes | English | 2022
5:30 pm: Bad Axe
After leaving NYC for his rural hometown of Bad Axe, MI at the start of the pandemic, an Asian-American filmmaker documents his family’s struggles to keep their restaurant open. As fears of the virus grow, deep generational scars dating back to the Cambodian Killing Fields unearth between the family’s patriarch, Chun, and his daughter, Jaclyn. When the BLM movement takes center stage in America, the family uses their voice to speak out in their town where Trumpism runs deep. What unfolds is a real-time portrait of 2020 through the lens of this multicultural family’s fight to keep their American dream alive in the face of a pandemic, Neo-Nazis, and the trauma of having survived a genocide.
David Siev | Documentary Feature | 100 minutes | English | 2022
8 pm: The Pez Outlaw
In the 1990s Pez dispensers were worth more, gram for gram, than cocaine or even gold. Steve Glew, from rural Michigan, spent 10 years smuggling Pez dispensers into the USA from Eastern Europe, making millions of dollars. It was all magical until… it wasn’t. His arch-nemesis, the Pezident, decided to destroy him.
Bryan Storkel and Amy Bandlien Storkel | Documentary Feature | 85 minutes | English | 2022
Sunday, June 12
2 pm: Dealing with Dad
Margaret Chang (Ally Maki) reluctantly returns to her hometown along with her hapless brothers (Hayden Szeto, Peter Kim) to deal with the sudden depression of their complete-jerk father (Dana Lee), whom everyone happens to hate. It turns out Dad is nicer depressed than well, and the siblings wonder if they should even get him better as they struggle to find a solution in this comedic drama.
Tom Huang | Narrative Feature | 106 minutes | English | 2022
