Films screen the First Tuesday of Every Month!
FIRST TUESDAY SMTX CELEBRATES ITS TWO-YEAR ANNIVERSARY IN MAY 2025!
SAN MARCOS PREMIERE!
GET BACK UP
The Blue October Story
Directed by Norry Niven (in person)
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Post-film Q&A: Director Norry Niven & Avery Armstrong, Music Historian, Center for Texas Music History at TXST
It’s been a remarkable career for San Marcos’s Blue October, but things certainly haven’t always been easy. Struggles with substance abuse, treatment and recovery have all been well-documented in their songs. GET BACK UP takes an unwavering look at the havoc that impacted lead singer/songwriter Justin Furstenfeld’s life and everyone around him. A redemptive story that reminds us there is a path to rebuilding everything you’ve lost.
Trailer HERE
This Season’s Program
The Grove, Texas
January 9th, 2024
In 1972, Moody Anderson bought a ghost town called The Grove, Texas, near Gatesville, TX, and brought it back to life. Now, nearly four decades later, he faces the heart-wrenching task of dismantling and selling his collection of Americana artifacts used in hundreds of films, from Lonesome Dove to Second Hand Lions to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the Coen Brothers’ remake of True Grit. The Grove, Texas reveals the emotional storm of doubt, excitement, and sense of closure as Moody puts his life’s passion in the hands of a young auctioneer.
Dance Hall Days
February 6th, 2024
Dance halls were once as common as cattle in Texas. Now, they exist in a time where their past is legend and future uncertain. Feature documentary Dance Hall Days showcases a cast of iconic characters striving to keep these legendary venues alive while one man fights make sure that not one more is lost to history. Featuring Texas’s best dance floors and beer joints with unique archives. RT: 72min.
Breaking The News
March 5th, 2024
Who decides which stories get told? A scrappy group of fearless women and LGBTQ+ journalists buck the white male-dominated status quo, banding together to launch The 19th*, a digital news startup aiming to combat misinformation. A story of an America in flux, and the voices often left out of the narrative, the documentary Breaking the News shows change doesn’t come easy.
The Stars at Night
April 2nd, 2024
The Stars at Night is a feature documentary that explores the connection between astronomy, mythology, and original storytelling. Through expert interviews and an expedition to one of North America’s last truly dark skies we try to discover what impact light pollution is having on our culture, and what stories may have never been told, had the storytellers never seen the stars.
FRIDAY I’M IN LOVE
May 7, 2024
In 1978 during Houston’s gay rights movement, Numbers Nightclub opened as a gay disco in the heart of Montrose – an LGBTQ enclave located in central Houston. Numbers progressed into the ‘80s as the premiere cutting edge music venue and dance club of Houston, becoming a home for the LGBTQ, punk rockers, goths, new wavers, club kids and a myriad of other subcultures. Friday I’m in Love details the nightclub’s long and storied history — mixing personal stories with those of the legendary musicians who performed there (Ministry, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Grace Jones, The Cure, Björk, Nine Inch Nails among them) this powerful documentary celebrates those who ignited and sustained its musical history and legacy of acceptance.
Juneteenth: Faith & Freedom
Tuesday, June 4, 2024
A Black man is troubled by the legacy of American slavery and the misuse of Christianity to justify it. He travels throughout Texas and discovers how the Juneteenth holiday reveals the hope and courage that empowered the formerly enslaved and their descendants to fight for freedom in an often unjust society. (Runtime: 59min)
Runaway Radio
Tuesday, July 9, 2024
“‘Runaway Radio,’ a documentary celebrating the wild and woozy heyday of the pioneering local rock radio station KLOL-FM. On the air from 1970 to 2004, KLOL transformed over its life from shaggy, free-form anarchy to loudmouth, shock-jock insanity, all the while providing the guitar-heavy soundtrack for a couple of generations of head-banging Houstonians,” wrote Cary Darling, the Houston Chronicle arts and entertainment editor. (Runtime 83 minutes)
FADERS UP: THE JOHN AIELLI EXPERIENCE
November 12th, 2024
“Faders Up” takes a cinematic deep-dive into the extraordinary life and career of iconic KUTX radio host John Aielli, best known for his radio program Eklektikos. With a legacy spanning over fifty years on air, Aielli was enigmatic and controversial, and had a profound influence on Austin’s musical diversity and cultural landscape. RT: 81min
COWBOYS WITHOUT BORDERS
Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024
“Cowboy Without Borders” explores American ranching and culture through the eyes of North, Central, and South American Cowboys. Though thousands of miles apart and separated by decades of advancement, the heart of the “American” Cowboy remains forever serving their people on their respective frontiers. (84 min)
Love Evolved
Tuesday, January 7th, 2025
A young physician becomes burned out and disillusioned with life. Desperate, he picks up a camera and sets out on a spiritual journey throughout the world in search of the secrets to inner peace and happiness, visiting neuroscientists, theologians, philosophers, psychologists, and ordinary people along the way.
Love Evolved
Tuesday, January 7th, 2025
A young physician becomes burned out and disillusioned with life. Desperate, he picks up a camera and sets out on a spiritual journey throughout the world in search of the secrets to inner peace and happiness, visiting neuroscientists, theologians, philosophers, psychologists, and ordinary people along the way.
WHEN HOUSTON HAD THE BLUES
Tuesday, February 4th, 2025
WHEN HOUSTON HAD THE BLUES focuses on the rich, but unheralded, spawning ground of great Black music. No other city can claim giants such as Lightnin’ Hopkins, Big Mama Thornton, Clifton Chenier, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Albert King, Freddie King, and Albert Collins, plus great (pre-Motown) Black-owned labels like Duke and Peacock. With new interviews featuring Billy Gibbons, CJ Chenier, Marcia Ball, Augie Meyers, Grady Gaines, and many others.
HEALER
Tuesday, March 4th, 2025
From sharecropper’s daughter to the First African American Surgeon General of the United States, HEALER tells the story of Dr. Joycelyn Elders. (2023, 50min)
FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO
Tuesday, April 1st, 2025
First We Bombed New Mexico is the untold story of Trinity, the world’s first nuclear bomb detonated in New Mexico one month before the bombing of Hiroshima. It is a story of government betrayal with tragic consequences. Thousands of New Mexicans – mostly Hispanic and Native American – were exposed to catastrophic levels of radioactive fallout, never warned, never acknowledged and never helped afterwards. Generations of cancers followed. Inspiring New Mexico Hispanic cancer survivor, Tina Cordova has catalyzed a movement seeking compensation for families – mostly Hispanic and Native – who suffer multigenerational cancers tied to that bomb – and who continue to be ignored. This documentary is witness to the people’s narrative for voices not heard.
GET BACK UP
Tuesday, May 6th, 2025
It’s been a remarkable career for San Marcos’s Blue October, but things certainly haven’t always been easy. Struggles with substance abuse, treatment and recovery have all been well-documented in their songs. GET BACK UP takes an unwavering look at the havoc that impacted lead singer/songwriter Justin Furstenfeld’s life and everyone around him. A redemptive story that reminds us there is a path to rebuilding everything you’ve lost.
General Details
Event held at The Price Center
222 W San Antonio St, San Marcos, TX
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