Movie News

Q Cinema film festival returns to Fort Worth after 4-year hiatus

Bookends will be one of three showcase films at the relaunched Q Cinema, taking place November 13-15 at Amphibian Stage.

Photo courtesy of 5X Media

Trinity Pride Fort Worth is bringing back the Q Cinema film festival after a four-year absence, with the 2026 edition taking place at Amphibian Stage, November 13-15.

According to a release, the festival will be showcased by three feature films, which have been screened at other notable film festivals such as Cannes Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival.

“This is a remarkable moment in Trinity Pride’s history," said Roger Calderon, president of Trinity Pride Fort Worth, in a statement. "We have the great privilege of stewarding a festival that has given Fort Worth’s LGBTQ+ community a place to see our lives and stories reflected on screen for nearly three decades. Bringing Q Cinema back allows us to honor what came before while creating something that can grow with Fort Worth’s LGBTQ+ community for years to come.”

Originally launched in 1996 as a discussion group by writer Todd Camp and then into a full festival format in 1999 by Camp and Shawn Moore, Q Cinema delivered year-round programming and an annual festival produced across Fort Worth for over two decades.

The festival will transform Amphibian Stage's 100-seat house, traditionally built for live theater, into a digital cinema for the three-day event.

In addition to the three headlining films, Q Cinema will host a lineup of documentary films, short films, retrospective showcases, and regional Texas films.

There will also be filmmaker conversations, panel discussions, and community gatherings.

The three headlining films include:

Bookends (Friday, November 13 at 7 pm) - When Nate (Noam Ash) is forced to leave his fabulous city life behind and move in with his grandparents after a bad breakup with his boyfriend, he is determined to escape the confines of retirement community life and his meddlesome grandparents’ relentless attempts to ‘improve’ him. But when his Holocaust-surviving grandfather, Saul (F. Murray Abraham), shows signs of cognitive decline and his grandmother, Miriam (Caroline Aaron), refuses to acknowledge her husband’s early dementia, Nate finds himself torn between his desire to flee, family responsibilities, and an unexpected romance with his grandparents’ handsome doctor (Charlie Barnett). Directed by Mike Doyle and written by Noam Ash.
Clarissa (Saturday, November 14 at 7 pm) - Starring Oscar nominee Sophie Okonedo and David Oyelowo, and directed by Arie and Chuko Esiri, Clarissa reimagines Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway in contemporary Lagos, Nigeria. As Clarissa prepares to host a high-society gathering, old friends and lovers resurface, stirring memories of passionate loves, hidden desires and roads not taken. The film transforms Woolf’s classic into a lush, bittersweet portrait of memory, longing and the lives we might have lived.
Jaripeo (Sunday, November 15 at 7:00 pm) - Directed by Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig, Jaripeo is a feature hybrid documentary that journeys to Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos. What starts as a celebration of tradition, descends into the subconscious of memory, queer desire, and longing. A reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.

Festival-goers can purchase all-access passes starting October 22, the same day that the complete festival schedule and film selections will be announced.

Individual tickets for all screenings will be available for purchase beginning November 2 at trinitypridefw.org.

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Movie Review

Truth is slippery in new doc about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes

Photo courtesy of A24

Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes in You Can See Everything.

Elizabeth Holmes faced one of the most public downfalls in recent history after she was accused of defrauding investors in her health technology company, Theranos. Her subsequent indictment and conviction drew the interest of many, including, it seems, comedian/actor/filmmaker Nathan Fielder. Fielder somehow convinced Holmes and her husband, Billy Evans, to make a documentary about her final days of freedom, called You Can See Everything.

It’s not immediately clear why Fielder — who only has one previous feature-length documentary to his credit — is interested in profiling Holmes, but the approach that he and co-director Lance Oppenheim (Primetime) take is one that puts Fielder in the spotlight as much as her or Evans. Fielder looms over the couple — sometimes literally, sometimes from afar — as they care for their children, make meals, try to re-establish business relationships, and prepare for Holmes’ prison sentence, which is due to start about a month after the film begins in 2023.

Fielder quizzes Holmes and Evans about predictable subjects — such as how Theranos worked, her relationship with COO Sunny Balwani, and her conviction — and ones that are slightly off-kilter, including the miniseries The Dropout, which dramatized Holmes’ rise and fall. He is met with seeming openness by both of them — the title of the movie is uttered by Holmes at one point — but there are times where their idea of transparency doesn’t jibe with Fielder’s expectations.

Through it all, the quirky reputation that Fielder has from TV shows like Nathan for You, The Curse, and The Rehearsal colors his participation, as well. He appears sincere, if surprisingly intense, in his questioning, but there are more than a few moments where it’s fair to wonder if the whole thing is an act of performance art. That suspicion grows in the second half of the nearly three-hour film as Fielder and Oppenheim go down roads that stretch the definition of what a documentary is or can be.

The film is utterly fascinating as the filmmakers go on what seems to be a full-on exploration of the meaning of truth. Holmes and Evans, either intentionally or unintentionally, carry on conversations with Fielder with wide-open, unblinking eyes, something that conveys honesty and creepiness in equal measures. Fielder meets them with squinting expressions, looking like he’s trying to determine how candid they’re actually being.

One of the biggest things the film reveals (or does it?) is that — if she’s not a sociopath — Holmes might be someone who’s either oblivious or naive. As cryptic or strange as she can be in words and actions, Evans is even more so, and as the film progresses it’s him whose motives and ideas are called into question. Control over the narrative of the film wobbles back-and-forth between Fielder, Holmes, and Evans, and even at the end it’s unclear whose perspective has truly won out.

There is no way to accurately get across what it’s like to watch You Can See Everything for the first time. The motives of everyone involved are up in the air, resulting in a roller coaster ride that’s full of astonishment, laughs, and a number of surprises. It’s an audacious film that can’t be categorized, one that will challenge the thinking of voters when it comes time for awards season.

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You Can See Everything opens in theaters on October 16.

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