AFS and ATX TV Festival present God Save Texas, a three-part documentary series from three Texan filmmakers (Richard Linklater, Iliana Sosa, and Alex Stapleton). The series offers unique and personal perspectives on their hometowns, creating contemporary portraits of a state that still echoes our nation’s past and warns of its possible future. The documentary trilogy is inspired by the book God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright. The series premieres on HBO on February 27.

Part 1: Hometown Prison
March 2 at 2 PM

Huntsville is the capital of the Texas prison colossus, with seven prisons in the area and one-quarter of the town’s adult population incarcerated. In his second documentary, five-time Oscar® nominated filmmaker Richard Linklater — whose Huntsville background has informed several of his feature films — takes on the divisive and heated issues of the penal system in his home state, which upholds the death penalty despite waning popularity; nearly 1,000 people in Huntsville alone have been legally put to death.

For many Huntsville locals, the prisons occupy another universe, distinct from their own. For others, they provide much-needed employment. In GOD SAVE TEXAS: HOMETOWN PRISON, Linklater chronicles the lives of everyday men and women whose lives are affected by the business of incarceration and death that looms over their town. In conversation with old friends and classmates, correctional officers and lawyers, death penalty advocates, and protestors, Linklater lays bare a thorny, symbiotic existence of the town with its incarcerated, painting a multi-faceted picture of the criminal justice system in Texas.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Richard Linklater (joining virtually) moderated by journalist and Texas Tribune co-founder, Evan Smith.

Part 2: The Price of Oil | Part 3: La Frontera
March 3 at 2 PM

In GOD SAVE TEXAS: THE PRICE OF OIL, Houston-born and raised filmmaker Alex Stapleton (REGGIE) turns her lens on her hometown to chronicle the impact of the Texas oil industry on Houston residents — specifically Black and disenfranchised communities, including the lives of her family, who arrived in Texas in the 1830s as slaves and have stayed in the state for nearly 200 years. Illustrating that environmental racism is a civil rights issue, and by giving voice to the very people who face the human cost of Texas’ biggest money-maker, GOD SAVE TEXAS: THE PRICE OF OIL is a call for a long overdue reckoning.

Next, in her poetic exploration of El Paso, Texas, Mexican-American filmmaker Iliana Sosa (WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND) unveils a city woven with vibrant Mexican heritage, its essence textured by the coexistence and division along the border shared with Juárez, Mexico. As Sosa traces the fluctuating nature of America’s relationship to migrants from south of the border, she invokes the concept of Nepantla, a Nahuatl word for a state of “in-between-ness,” suggesting a frontier land with blurred edges where first-generation immigrant children straddle two cultures, navigating a complex sense of identity and belonging. In GOD SAVE TEXAS: LA FRONTERA, Sosa posits that a shared culture and a fluidity between the countries has always enriched El Paso, giving rise to a humanity and unique hybridity that allowed the city to come together and heal in the wake of the 2019 Walmart tragedy.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors Alex Stapleton and Iliana Sosa in person.