Staff and featured guests at the Slated Cinema at the release party for the magazine.
Slated Cinema
A cover of Slated Cinema magazine
Slated Cinema
People who attended the recent Wes Anderson Homecoming Soiree at the Hobby Center, an event where the acclaimed, Houston-born filmmaker came home to show his support for the renovation/reopening of the Garden Oaks Theater, may have seen or picked up cards that were placed around the lobby, promoting “a film magazine for the moviegoing masses” called Slated Cinema. The back of the card had three words in big, bold letters: “READ, WATCH, CONNECT.”
Slated Cinema is a Houston-based, print/online venture that specializes in giving young, local filmmakers a forum to tell their stories. “Slated, I guess, was our way to kind of connect everybody through something physical, something tangible through cinema,” says editor-in-chief/filmmaker/photographer Sarah Ontiveros.
BACK IN HOUSTON: Wes Anderson makes his return to Houston to help support Garden Oaks Theater preservation efforts
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Drawing inspiration from such hipster periodicals as Interview, Dazed and the luxury entertainment platform Hollywood Authentic, Ontiveros got with some of her filmmaker pals to round up content for the semi-annual magazine (and its website). “We were trying to figure out how to create something that people can connect to, but also hold in their hands at the same time and didn’t have to live online through social media,” she says. “For me personally, that was what I was trying to get away from. I know that’s a big part of what we’re doing, but I like the fact that you can unplug and just pick up a magazine and read something.”
While the website went live in September, the magazine eventually showed up in their hands in December, with $15 copies available at their website and Montrose bookstore/art space Basket Books & Art, currently the only bookseller carrying it. Ontiveros paid out of her pocket to print the 150 copies for that first issue (now sold out).
For the new issue, which came out last month, Slated continues to shine a light on the city’s film community, doing profiles on production companies Giggle Circle and Some Like It, and interviewing film enthusiasts of color like filmmaker Mekdese Haile and film programmer Autumn Johnson.
“The Houston film scene is in a really interesting kind of place right now,” says head writer Eli Fischer, who also co-founded the physical-media pop-up Death2Streaming DVD Swap. “I still think that there’s this aura around the general Houston community where it’s like, oh, it’s not really a film city, and you kind of have to break into it. But once you’re in there, you kind of realize like, wow, there’s a lot of people making a lot of really cool things in Houston.”
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But they’re not just focusing on nearby folk. The cover story has Ontiveros speaking to Texas-bred, New York-based filmmaking duo Pablo Mejia and Brittney Rodriguez, while there are brief pieces on filmmakers from Austin and Los Angeles.
“We want to expand our reach, for sure,” says Ontiveros. “I think that continues to be the goal. I think the more that we grow, the more people we want to talk to, and not just in our own town. There’s a film scene in a ton of different cities. Atlanta is a big city that’s up-and-coming. Philadelphia is where I want to live, so I’ve been tapping into their film scene, and they seem to have a pretty neat space.”
Most of these pieces are available to read over at Slated’s website, along with video interviews and shorts and videos from featured filmmakers. As much as they want to focus on the printed word, the Slated crew know they have to bring some bells and whistles online.
“It all comes from the film industry, and I think, you know, we wouldn’t want to 100% stray away from video,” says Ontiveros. “But, at the same time, we kind of like to use it as an incentive. So, we’ll publish video content, but I know sometimes we’ll go into ‘If you want to get the full story on this interview/concept/whatever it is, that’ll be in this next issue’… It is about the film industry at the end of the day.”
As Ontiveros and her team look ahead to dropping a new issue in the winter, they’re also focusing on building relationships with local directors and the festivals that spotlight them. They’ve already done pieces on such regional film gatherings as this year’s Houston Latino Film Festival and a Halloween-themed Houston Filmmaker Showcase at River Oaks Theatre.
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“I’ll tell you, it’s really cool to be in a place where there’s 250 people sitting all together watching ten independently made short films, you know,” says Fischer. “And, so, the enthusiasm behind that is always really encouraging, I think.”
Says Ontiveros, “I think, at the end of the day, we all want that for Houston. I think that’s the common goal. Whether you’re in the industry or not, that’s something I think we all want to see grow here.”