Three Days in August
USA, 2016, 100 min., Color
A wife, mother and artist named Shannon invites her entire family—husband, son, parents, and granddad—for a weekend getaway at the ranch to have their family portrait painted. Yet, Shannon is adopted, so her birth mother and her mother's husband are also invited to join.
Over the course of their long weekend, Shannon and her family dine, discuss, and discover secrets, uncovering surprises and commonalities no one could expect. Her quest to understand her past and her birth mother isn’t uncommon. It’s the path to those answers that make her story unique.
Director Johnathan Brownlee beautifully captures the quiet—and beautiful—moments of a retreat to a rustic ranch, and the natural tension a family gathering of this sort often brings. The film offers indelible moments of humor, charm, love – of motherhood — and family.
THREE DAYS IN AUGUST Screenwriter's Chad Berry and David Langlinais are winners of THE SIONNA PROJECT, a truly unique screenwriting competition that started in April during the 2015 Dallas International Film Festival. The project is executive produced by Shannon Kincaid, Allen Stringer, David Kiger & Johnathan Brownlee. Winners receive a $10,000 cash prize, a world premiere at the 10th annual Dallas International Film Festival and a guaranteed limited national theatrical release from Studio Movie Grill.
— LEE PAPERT

Occupy, Texas
USA, 2016, 95 min., Color
Seven years after the height of Occupy Wall Street, Beau Baker is still raging against the machine—from a tent—in a New York City alley. When his uncle tracks him down and informs him of his parents' tragic death, Beau packs up his things and heads home to Texas to take care of his family affairs and two sisters who aren’t sure what to think of their long lost brother.
Until now, Beau has been a master at avoiding responsibility. Nearly paralyzed at having to confront his sisters, his past, and himself, he decides to pass guardianship to his recently divorced Aunt Uma. But when Aunt Uma has to leave for an unplanned business trip, Beau is forced to watch the girls for a short period of time. As Beau implements his particular brand of unadulterated responsibility—allowing his sisters to skip school, throw parties, eat junk food and have free reign re-inventing the rules—the chaos of the Occupy movement slowly descends upon the family home in suburban Texas.
Jeff Barry’s, OCCUPY, TEXAS is definitely a bold and often humorous look at how people react—or fail to react—to death.
— JAMES FAUST

DIFF2016 pre-festival round table interview.