As part of our official reopening celebration, The Front Market and Festival, we’re collaborating with Cheer Up Charlies for a weekend of nighttime showcases featuring women and queer musicians and filmmakers across Texas.
On August 21, come through for a nighttime, outdoor screening of shorts and features made by local filmmakers, producers and directors. This night will also mark the first-ever in-person screening of GIRLS LIKE US from p1nkstar, which features a selection of trans artists across the state of Texas.
❤️Tickets are $15. Masks required.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Produced by Future Front Texas and powered by you, The Front exists to put women and queer creators at the front of our lineups. At this nighttime event on August 21, our schedule includes:
7:00 PM CT — DOORS
9:00 PM CT — SCREENINGS BEGIN
11:30 PM CT — SCREENINGS END
11:30 PM CT — DJ SETS BEGIN
HOW TO ATTEND
To attend this nighttime event, RSVP now with a $15 donation. Free or by donation tickets for the festival’s daytime markets on August 21 and 22 are available now, too.
When you RSVP, you have the option to donate to our work. Every pledge made with your ticket will directly benefit the administration of our Creative Future of Texas Fund, a micro-grants program for emerging creatives and small business owners.
Name your own ticket price at check-out below:
MEET OUR GUEST FILMMAKERS + DJs:
GIRLS LIKE US is a live music video experience by Texas pop sensation, p1nkstar, celebrating the work of trans artists in Texas. The feature-length special, features starring live music performances by Texas-based Lorelei K, Belladonna and Quentin Arispe, as well as special appearances by national talent like Gavilán Rayna Russom, Ariel Zetina and more.
During the cinematic special p1nkstar and friends perform live music and choreographies through futuristic custom-built sets and light installations created by Austin-based artist Y2K, making Girls Like Us unlike any other livestream concert.
Girls Like Us is presented by Hotel Free TV, directed and produced by p1nkstar and Y2K.
Meghan Ross (she/her) is a writer, producer, director, comedian, and activist from New York (okay, raised in New Jersey), now based in Austin. Her latest shorts premiered on The New Yorker and made their Best of 2020 list: If You Ever Hurt My Daughter, I Swear to God I’ll Let Her Navigate Her Own Emotional Growth featuring narration by Jon Hamm, which was nominated for The Webby Awards in 2021, and Finally a Female Presidential Candidate Likable Enough For Men featuring narration by Rachel Bloom. Her writing has appeared in Reductress, IFC, Slackjaw, VICE's Broadly, TV Without Pity, The Toast, and some more defunct but beloved sites, and she hosts the Instagram Live series No One Asked For This and hosted the late night show That Time of the Month for 5 years and 3 Twitch shows. She previously worked for VICELAND and SundanceTV, and is currently the Head of Creator Success at Seed&Spark and aspiring stage mom for her dog, Dreidel.
Brittany Reeber (she/her) is a writer, visual artist and producer of feature films, music videos and commercials. She has produced music videos for Parquet Courts, Azealia Banks and Protomartyr, among others, and played a vital role on the production team of a dozen independent films and series including Mia Lodofsky's Strangers (Sundance 2017) and Noel Well's Mr. Roosevelt (SXSW 2017). Her commercial clients run the gamut. Most recently, she produced Second Act, a branded documentary series for Vice and Mailchimp. Her short film The Cheap Seats screened virtually at festivals worldwide in 2020 and in January 2021 she was an artist in residence at The Studios of Key West.
Mosaico Experiencia is an intersectional, transcultural installation for body memory, ancestral activation, and cathartic evolution AKA a party. They’ll close out the night with a DJ set.
Evelyn Ngugi (she/her) is a humor writer, digital storyteller, producer, and speaker based in Austin, Texas. She joined YouTube back in 2008, and today her channel has about 13 million views and 205,000 subscribers.
She makes a grab bag of content, from travel vlogs and silly beauty guru-esque tutorials to funny first generation American stories and Black pop culture commentary. In 2017, she was a YouTube Creators For Change fellow, and received a grant to produce positive content that makes our world a better place. Naturally, she chose to talk to a puppet and wear a wig.
She currently co-hosts and writes Say It Loud, a PBS Digital Studios show about Black histories and cultures. You can follow her on Instagram at @evelynfromtheinternets.
andie flores (she/her) is a writer, visual and performance artist, and comedian whose work and play are guided by questions of audience, excess, glitches, legacy, experiments of liveness, and performances of online identity. Through self-portraiture, character video experiments and live (in-person and online) performances, her work explores and explodes the complexities of knowing oneself as a racialized body and general clown idiot in multiple layers of time, space, and cultural connectivity. She is currently a doctoral student in Mexican American Latinx Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Chinwe Okorie (she/her) is a Nigerian-born writer, director, and editor in Austin, TX. At age six, she immigrated to the United States and watched her first film, Titanic. It was then that her love affair with cinema began. In college, her student-run TV station Topper TV received The Rising Star Award, and Study Breaks magazine featured Chinwe as their Next Big Thing in 2014. After college, Chinwe went on to write, direct, and edit short films including her most recent film, Lovebites, which is currently distributed by Issa Rae Presents.
Emily Basma (she/her) is an Austin based photographer and filmmaker who explores myth, folklore, and iconography through a feminine gaze. Emily loves creating beautiful and atmospheric filmscapes that hopefully reminds the viewer of their most pleasant dreams.
BEHIND THE FRONT MARKET AND FESTIVAL
The Front Market and Festival has emerged from what was formerly known as BABES FEST and craftHER Market—two spaces that were designed around sustaining communities that care about gender equity and supporting homegrown businesses, creatives and organizations. Active from 2016 to 2020, BABES FEST and craftHER Market saw more than 30,000 guests and supported more than 2000 creatives and business owners.
Now, after a year of shutdowns, pivots and existential realness, The Front Market and Festival will carry that work into the future.
We will continue platforming emerging talent across the state of Texas. We will continue to work cross-collaboratively with partners to host workshops, build community and provide opportunities to creatives and small business owners year-round. Thank you to all of our supporting brands, organizations and collaborators:
As our first flagship production, we are so grateful for your support. <3 If you are interested in becoming a partner in 2022, please email us at hello@futurefronttexas.org.
MEET THE PRODUCERS, FUTURE FRONT TEXAS
Future Front Texas is a 501c3 nonprofit, homegrown in Austin, Texas. We started as a grassroots meet-up series called Boss Babes ATX (bbatx) in 2015.
We are run by a four-person staff and a network of amazing volunteers, each committed to showing up for the spaces we want to see in the world.
Alongside our members, collaborators and partners, we nurture creativity, community-building and professional resilience in Texas. We cultivate spaces where women and queer creatives, founders and leaders can grow together.
Currently, we produce The Front Festival and Market, a year-round learning club and conference, as well as multiple community-care initiatives. You’re invited to join us, of course. You can learn more about how it all works, our team and what we do: futurefronttexas.org
PREPARE YOUR VISIT TO THE FRONT MARKET AND FESTIVAL
VENUE LOCATION + ACCESSIBILITY — The Front Market and Festival will be held at Fair Market, which is located at 1100 E 5th St, Austin, TX 78702, as well as Cheer Up Charlies at 900 Red River St. Austin, TX 78702. Both venues are wheelchair-accessible and all activities will occur on the ground floor. The outdoor lawn within Fair Market is located on a slope and may be difficult to access without additional assistance, so do reach out to us for support: hello@futurefronttexas.org.
PARKING — We highly encourage utilizing rideshare or carpooling as there is limited self-parking available onsite. Both venues are easily accessible by Austin public transportation, too.
AVAILABLE LANGUAGES — ASL interpreters can be provided upon request. Si necesita traducción al español para participar en este evento, envíenos un correo electrónico a hello@futurefronttexas.org.
OUR CURRENT HEALTH AND SAFETY PRECAUTIONS —
Capacity will be limited to reduce crowding.
All sessions will be held in outdoor and open-air spaces.
All guests will be required to practice mutual respect and social distancing.
All guests are required to follow APH’s Stage 5 Guidelines:
Fully vaccinated individuals should:
Wear a mask.
If you are high-risk with underlying conditions or ill, avoid large gatherings.
Partially or unvaccinated individuals should:
Get fully vaccinated.
Stay home and avoid gatherings.
If you have a question about the building's accessibility or anticipate needing assistance, shoot us a line at hello@futurefronttexas.org. We're happy to help and will get back to you. :)