When Bart Weiss started the Dallas Video Festival in the 1980s, the only local competition was the USA Film Festival. Cable TV was in its infancy. And the internet as we know it today didn’t exist.
Now, there are dozens of Dallas-based film festivals, not to mention all the streaming services that make it possible to watch on demand almost anything that’s ever been released.
“The universe has changed,” says Weiss, who is shutting down his long-running festival after a 34th edition this fall.
Dallas VideoFest — as it’s now known — has been broken down into a series of mini-festivals for the last few years. The Medianale celebrates video art; Alternative Fiction emphasizes narratives; DocuFest, the last of which is scheduled at the Angelika for Sept. 30-Oct. 3, screens documentaries.
Weiss, 68, says the nonprofit organization behind VideoFest, the Dallas Video Association, will continue to produce Frame of Mind, his monthly show on Dallas public television station KERA, and occasionally give out its Ernie Kovacs Award, named for the innovative comedy writer and performer, to worthy artists.
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For more information on the festival, visit videofest.org.
By Manuel Mendoza