The Houston Palestine Film Festival is starting off its seventh year as strong as ever. This locally grown film festival was built on community donations and volunteers, who have supported the festival since 2007. HPFF won the Best Local Film Festival Award by the Houston Press in 2009 and the Audience Choice Award in 2010. This year the Houston Arts Alliance recognized HPFF’s years of community support and successful programming through a grant. These grants are typically given to organizations that encourage the sharing of distinct Houston cultures. In an interview with the festival director, Sary Joudah explained that the ... Read More »

  Sometimes Houston can feel like featureless flat sprawl of concrete and metal.  It doesn’t help that most of us experience this flat featureless sprawl from the further insulating bubble of our car. It is easy to paint Houston as a sterile and isolating place but you would be ignoring that Houston has the diversity and cultural wealth deserving of the fourth largest city in the United States.  To cash in on these attributes, we need to remove the car window barrier and create some shared experiences. While the individualistic structure of an auto-centric city can make community events more ... Read More »

Last week FPH published an article on the new parking ordinance amendment being proposed by the City of Houston Planning & Development Department. This amendment has some Houstonians worried because it is requiring a 20% increase in parking for restaurants and a 40% increase for bars. The table above is a recently released budget analysis for small bars and restaurants incorporating the cost of the proposed parking amendment requirements. The model concludes that small restaurants and bars would not have enough money for rent if they complied with the new parking requirements. Bobby Heugel , President of An Organized Kooperative ... Read More »

Houston is a city defined by a lack of zoning. While the majority of US cities plan which areas they want designated for shopping centers, businesses, bars or residences, Houston isn’t tied down by that invisible government map. That lone bar down the street from your house, the adult video store next to your church, the scattered clusters of skyscrapers , all these phenomena are gifts of Houston’s non-zoning approach to city planning. The parking problem, largely created by the lack of zoning laws, has ironically prompted the city to pass parking ordinances. These ordinances have the potential to become ... Read More »

The young Houston playwright, Lauren Belmore, brings her play to the Applause Theater in Houston. “She’s Beyond Good and Evil” is a series of five vignettes based on the music of St. Vincent. Lauren sits down with Free Press Houston to discuss her play, her thoughts on theater, and growing up in Houston. Q: Tell me about your play based on the music of St. Vincent. A: I am a student at the University of North Texas. [The play] was developed via a program we have at school called First Stage. It’s usually a director pitching plays but I decided ... Read More »

Whether you’ve personally experienced Californication, or you’ve spent a good chunk of time in Los Angeles, it haunts you. As the entertainment mecca, L.A. life shows up in nearly all music and film. Sure, you get a sprinkle of New York in there, but what about everything in between. You’ll find shots of the New York skyline, or surfers at the beach, or other scenes with weak parallels to our lives here. Well fuck California, what about Houston, and our reality? There haven’t been too many artists ruminating on our life on the third coast, but Hayes Carll is a ... Read More »

“Dinosaurs were on the arc! That’s what I would teach.” The head of the Texas State Board of Education meant this, quite seriously.The Revisionaries is a documentary or inadvertent comedy/horror movie about the rewriting of Texas textbooks and the conflicts between liberal and conservative board members. The political and social implications of the board’s decisions are why this movie is so scary and why we as a nation need to be more conscious of the influences on our nation’s youth.  What better way to shape the minds and direction of our country than to dictate what they are taught is ... Read More »

Local artist Jon Read has created a comical, beautiful, twisted and colorful ride for all, on view at Domy books. The exhibition titled Notes from the Dark Ride takes the viewer through the paintings in a self-powered cart. The experience is like a more entertaining and completely endurable version of the Disney ride, “It’s a small world.” Notes from the Dark Ride includes art and music in a well-constructed installation, which reflects the many facets of Jon Read. Read is obsessed with comic books, cult films, sci-fi and mythology/religion. He has received formal training in religious art through his work ... Read More »

The difficulty with supporting local artists in a real way is not having an extra fat wad of cash to purchase their work. The Art League of Houston understands our dilemma and has organized the first ever Holiday Mini-mART & Party. With food, drinks, DJs and art you can actually afford, it’s a win-win for everyone. The ALH building on 1953 Montrose Blvd will be hosting the event on Saturday, December 15th from 6 pm to 9 pm.  The Mini-mART offers a variety of pieces by local artists, all for under $100. Besides the showcased art, this free event will ... Read More »

Spain brings up a lot of different images for a lot of different people. For many young travelers it’s a man carrying a cooler of cheap brew down the street yelling “cervesabeer!”, but the MFAH and its partners are going beyond that. The lasting images of 15th to 18th century Spain are showcased in the MFAH exhibition, Portrait of Spain: Masterpieces from the Prado. The MFAH is kicking off the exhibition this Sunday, December 16th, with a street fair celebrating all things Spanish. From 1 pm– 4 pm, Sunday December 16th the Beck Building Main Street entrance will be fully ... Read More »