Last Updated on June 9, 2023, 8:21 AM | Published: June 9, 2023
OKLAHOMA CITY — deadCenter 2023 is off and running!
The opening night parties are over, the screenings have begun, and Downtown OKC has become the eye of the local filmmaking storm through this weekend.
But with a multi-day slate packed possibly fuller than ever before, you might be struggling to know where to be among the screenings and events, and that’s where Free Press has you covered.
Be sure to catch these happenings on Day 2 of deadCenter Film Festival 2023, and check out our featured selection for the day at the end.
Okie Shorts 1&2 – Oklahoma City Museum of Art – 5:30 pm & 8:00 pm
OKCMOA’s Sam Noble Theater is your Friday evening home for the homegrown as they present these two separate slates of OK-made short offerings.
If you come to deadCenter to see the best in up-and-coming local filmmaking, these showcases are required viewing.
Friday Night Frolic – Dunlap Codding – 6:00 pm
If you weren’t able to make it to Thursday’s opening night parties, then the Friday Night Frolic is your chance to kick the weekend into gear and get into the spirit with drinks, live music, and plenty of elbow-rubbing.
‘Plan C’ – Harkins Bricktown Auditorium 11 – 6:15 pm
Documentarian Tracy Droz Tragos tracks the growing struggle of the Plan C organization, a largely underground group dedicated to ensuring safe access to abortion pills across America.
‘The Awkward Stage’ – Harkins Bricktown Auditorium 10 – 7:30 pm
Local wife-and-husband team Kara and Jeremy Choate return with the follow-up to their 2022 breakout “Tenkiller.”
Once again examining the complexities of outcast, disaffected youth, but this time around, things get a bit more odd as a young teen finds himself falling in love with a sculpture.
‘This Closeness’ – Harkins Bricktown Auditorium 15 – 7:00 pm
Speaking of awkward, writer/director/star Kit Zauhar’s micro-budget dramedy sees a rocky couple forced to spend a little time stuck way too close to a particularly strange stranger.
‘BLACK AS U R’ – Harkins Bricktown Auditorium 14 – 8:00 pm
Hosted by Afro Cinema Nights, director Michael Rice’s documentary tackles one of the most complicated and infinitely nuanced issues in American discourse today: homophobia and transphobia in the Black community.
‘Time Bomb Y2K’ – Harkins Bricktown Auditorium 11 – 8:45 pm
True-life documentary tracking the confusion, panic, and eventual hysteria over Y2K, the much-hypothesized worldwide computer crash that never was.
FREE PRESS FEATURED PICK: Music Video Showcase, including ‘Chinga La Migra’ by Lincka – Harkins Bricktown Auditorium 10 – 5:00 pm
deadCenter has become renowned for its selection and cultivation of short films, and the music video is still one of the best ways for shorts-makers to cut their teeth. So of course the music video showcase is an important draw each year.
Easily one of the most talked-about and creatively singular music videos this year is the clip for local Chicana singer/songwriter Lincka’s “Chinga La Migra.”
Named for a popular Spanish-language slogan of defiance and protest against dehumanizing immigration politics and border police, the track was inspired by her own family, not only by their own experiences immigrating but in working to help others do the same.
“My brother is actually an immigration lawyer,” Lincka told Free Press. “He helps represent people seeking asylum at the border, and he would tell me about how the court acknowledges his clients is as ‘illegal alien’ and then just a number. Not even by their name.”
Digging deeper into the Hispanic immigrant experience, both personal and political, she began to develop the song as something of a rallying cry, recontextualizing the border as the broken heart between two nations.
“I just started to write about how it’s all rooted in colonialism and the ways that we were colonized,” she said. “With everything going on, it’s like I’ve really had to become an activist more and more these past couple of years. So I wanted to make it a ballad, but I really wanted to say something powerful.”
The idea behind the song’s video was to both spotlight and deconstruct the Hispanic-American experience, with family, friends, food, and fighting for respect, but with Lincka herself presented with a look as alien and otherworldly as immigrants are seen and treated at the border.
“She just had this very vivid idea,” said Rahul Chakraborty, the video’s director. “It’s just this huge juxtaposition of being called an alien and treated like an alien, but then having an entire family that doesn’t think of you that way and doesn’t treat you like an alien at all.”
deadCenter Film Festival runs June 8th through June 11th.
Check back each day for our can’t-miss selections and our daily Free Press Featured Pick!
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
