Hico, Texas’ Billy the Kid Film Festival rolls out outlaw-spirited films and Westerns this weekend
The Hico-based Billy the Kid Film Festival today announced the films and events for the 8th edition of the outlaw-themed film festival taking place November 7-9. Th film festival, focused on films with an outlaw spirit will open this year’s edition with a free-to-the public presentation of music-fueled films, featuring Natalie Aramendia’s Under the Western Skies, and an episode from the locally-produced PBS series Texas Dance Halls: Still Swingin’ series directed and hosted by BTKFF alumni Jay Pennington, and joined by film and television legend Barry Corbin at Green Canoe (108 Elm Street).
The festival’s official closing presentations, prior to the always raucous Red Carpet Filmmaker Awards event will put BTKFF’s western-roots at the forefront with Carl Bailey’s B-western homage, Dawn at Dominion, and Theordore C Flood’s Buffalo Bill Cody story The Last Outlaw serving as a fun Western-themed double feature. The VIP and Red Carpet Party following those screenings will take place at the Wide Saddle Saloon (104 N. Railroad Street), offering attendees a lively and festive atmosphere to celebrate the attending filmmakers and the weekend’s events.
Festival founder Luci DiGiorgio, said, “The eighth year is going to be even better that before. We are so proud of this lineup, our wonderful returning filmmakers and new Texas filmmakers getting a spotlight in our Hico-based fest.”
This year’s Billy the Kid Film Festival Filmmaker workshop, a can’t miss event, kicking off the Saturday day and evening of screenings and Q&A’s at the Hico Community Center (100 North Railroad Street) will be “Cut the Crap, Film Festival Reality Versus Fantasy” led by John Wildman and Bart Weiss. Wildman, the BTKFF publicist, is the former Head of PR at the American Film Institute and Senior Publicist at the Film Society of Lincoln Center who now represents and works with more than 18 film festivals across the country, as well as countless films. Weiss is a longtime Dallas film influencer, filmmaker, and instructor set to release his latest book on navigating the film festival terrain. Together, they will give local filmmakers information to assist in giving their films the best possible strategy to not simply get into film festivals, but to also utilize those appearances and screenings to grow their brand and further their careers.
The 8th edition of BTKFF includes 45 films (7 feature-length (5 narrative, 2 documentary), 38 short films and music videos) that will once again put the spotlight on outlaw and/or western themes, along with the film festival’s annual enthusiastic focus on celebrating the work of local and Texas-based filmmakers.
Beloved Film/TV and Texas legend, Barry Corbin will also be present on Saturday to meet and speak with film fans. A friend of the Billy the Kid Film Festival and namesake of the BTKFF Barry Corbin Award, it is always a highlight for filmmakers and film fans to hear Corbin discuss the many films and television shows he has made an impact on throughout his career.
Additional highlights on Saturday, November 7 include Texas Shorts blocks and a Western Shorts block with films including Sara Gaston’s Coyote about three women making a desperate attempt find the medical care that’s being denied to them with unknown enemies in close pursuit. Manuel Navarro’s Garden Valley was Inspired by the horrific Mann family murders of spring 1988, and follows two friends lost in a haze of hard rock, reckless choices, drugs, and volatile romance. Rebeca Duran’s Rebel Heart tells the story of Paulita Maxwell, a strong-willed young woman navigating the complexities of life amidst the backdrop of the Lincoln County Wars.
Highlights on Sunday will be led by Tracy Satterwhite’s documentary Shine which tells the story of Mike Straughter, the owner of Chase Shoe Shine Parlor in Houston’s historic Third Ward — a neighborhood long regarded as a cradle of civil rights activism and cornerstone of African American culture. The day and the festival will conclude with a screening of Victor Quinton’s thriller The Blue Moon Rising, where a former Navy Seal takes on a sinister cult which has been abducting young girls to be sacrificed on every Blue Moon.
The Billy the Kid Film Festival sponsors include: The City of Hico, FilmsGoneWild.com, Green Canoe, Hico Chamber of Commerce, Tarleton State University School of Liberal Arts and School of Communications, Event-O-Matic, Bosque Film Society, and The Bosque Film Society.
Film festival passes and tickets are on-sale now. For more information on the Billy the Kid Film Festival go to https://www.billythekidfilmfestival.com.
The 2026 Billy the Kid Film Festival official selections:
OPENING NIGHT PRESENTATION
Texas Dance Halls: Still Swingin’
Director: Jay Pennington
Country: United States; Running Time: 30 min
Texas Dance Halls: Still Swingin’ takes viewers on a journey through iconic venues and the communities that built and sustained them. Along the way, audiences will hear personal stories and experience the authentic charm that continues to draw people onto the dance floor.
Under the Western Skies (formerly, A Ranch Musical)
Director: Natalie Aramendia
Country: United States; Running Time: 61 min
Kristyn can handle rugged land, stubborn cattle, and impossible odds. What she is not prepared for is the possibility that saving her family’s ranch may require help from a tech-savvy outsider with shiny cowboy boots. Fiercely independent and deeply tied to the traditions of ranch life, Kristyn has spent her life proving she can carry her family’s legacy forward. But when foreclosure threatens the future of the ranch, she is forced to consider a future she never wanted – one shaped by innovation instead of instinct. That future arrives in Jordan, a charming city-bred neighbor whose modern ideas challenge everything Kristyn has fought to preserve. As their worlds clash, Kristyn must navigate the tension between tradition and progress, pride and vulnerability, duty and desire.
NARRATIVE FEATURE FILMS
According to Kate
Director: Manuela Schneider
Country: United States; Running Time: 40 min
A New York reporter travels to Cochise County, Arizona, searching for Kate Elder — the woman history remembers as “Big Nose Kate.” Over whiskey and guarded memories, Kate recounts her turbulent life with Doc Holliday, her witness to the aftermath of the O.K. Corral, and the cost of surviving a West that judged women more harshly than the men who made legends of themselves. As Lucy presses to publish her story, Kate must decide whether history deserves the truth — and whether she is willing to give it away.
Dawn at Dominion
Director: Carl Bailey
Country: United States; Running Time: 40 min
Dawn at Dominion, is a true homage to the B-western films and explores themes of loss, the quest for justice, and resonates with a spirit of redemption. The film follows Lucas Stone, a former US Marshal turned bounty hunter, tracking a kidnapped woman that does not want to be found.
The Blue Moon Rising
Director: Victor Quinton
Country: United States; Running Time: 85 min
For decades, a sinister cult abducts young girls to be sacrificed on every Blue Moon. No one believed the story of an elderly man who lived by the river. That is until a former Navy Seal chose to believe.
The Last Outlaw
Director: Theodore C Flood
Country: United States; Running Time: 45 min
When Buffalo Bill Cody sets up auditions for his next Wild West Show in the small town of Electra, TX., he finds solace in an acquaintance from the 19th century.
ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTARY FEATURES
Shine
Director: Tracey Satterwhite
Country: United States; Running Time: 48 min
Shine tells the story of Mike Straughter, the owner of Chase Shoe Shine Parlor in Houston’s historic Third Ward — a neighborhood long regarded as a cradle of civil rights activism and cornerstone of African American culture. For more than two decades, Mike has offered far more than a shine — he’s created a gathering place where people from all walks of life find belonging, conversation, and kindness. His shop has grown into a quiet engine of community outreach, where customers roll up their sleeves alongside him to help people in need.
Wreckage
Director: Ash Patiño
Country: United States; Running Time: 79 min
Dylan was not an ordinary nineteen-year-old. He was fiercely independent, deeply committed to farming, and intent on building a life from the land he owned in Lucin, Utah. Days could pass without a word from him as he worked his fields, silence that never worried those who knew his dedication. Days came and went without a text, a call, or the familiar photos of newly planted crops. Concern turned to alarm. His family contacted the local sheriff’s department, and speculation spread quickly, among neighbors, Lucin locals, and an army of online sleuths. One thing was unmistakable: Dylan’s silence was wrong. As the search intensified, internet psychics and armchair investigators fed on the family’s hope, slowly draining it. In this episode of Sword and Scale, we follow the twists of a high-stakes investigation led by the sheriff’s office and the FBI, an investigation that would ultimately uncover a truth so brutal it left everyone who learned it questioning how betrayal could run so deep.
NARRATIVE SHORTS
All of It
Directors: Cody Tolle, Clinton Pickens
Country: United States; Running Time: 11 min
Old friends take a bucket list vacation only to find themselves trapped on a bus tour with hard-partying 20-somethings.
Charro 250
Director: Diego Huerta
Country: United States; Running Time: 8 min
250 years ago, while the United States was being born from the 13 colonies on the East Coast, more than half of the current western territory belonged to Mexico. Far from telling this story from a perspective of division or conflict, Charro 250 embraces this reality as a love letter to our shared heritage.
Chase Your Dreams
Directors: Brandon Oldenburg, Limbert Fabian
Country: United States; Running Time: 5 min
Led by the fluttering allure of a childhood dream, a dancer embarks on a whimsical, breathless journey, a choreography of pursuit, a a literal, continuous sprint, moving one beat ahead of the rhythm, she must fight through a gauntlet of detours threatening to derail her from her childhood wish.
Coyote
Director: Sara Gaston
Country: United States; Running Time: 12 min
Three women make a desperate attempt find the medical care that’s being denied to them. With unknown enemies in close pursuit, they have to decide if they can trust the one person who promises them deliverance.
Desert Flower
Directors: Cade Evered, Max Page
Country: United States; Running Time: 12 min
In the lawless West, a sickly outlaw and his headstrong daughter journey toward his hanging, but when a pair of ruthless bounty hunters intercept them, the girl must decide if her father’s fate is sealed—or if she’s willing to become a killer.
Dobrina
Director: Hannes Rall
Country: Germany, Singapore; Running Time: 5 min
Lotte Reiniger meets Sergio Leone in this animated short, where desire burns as bright as the desert sun.
Embers
Director: Linden Wallace Dodson
Country: United States; Running Time: 10 min
Set in the early 1940s near Waco, Texas, a young boy, George, who, along with his parents take refuge in an abandoned gas station. George defies his family and their emotional instability and runs away into a nearby forest. George spends hours admiring the environment, but as he comes across a clearing, he eventually finds what he was looking for: his family’s old house that was recently burned down.
Fight
Director: Ryan Zreik
Country: United States; Running Time: 20 min
Two brothers raised by a demanding father push themselves to their limits trying to prove they’re strong enough, but their rivalry starts to tear them apart until they realize the consequences of giving everything to your sport.
Flowers
Directors: Brooke Musia, Nick Thompson
Country: United States; Running Time: 12 min
In a tempestuous time in 1960s America, a young man throws his lot towards the only choice he believes is his own. He packs his bag and departs, leaving the love of home and the thoughtful plans of his father. However, the prodigal waste of what his father has given him quickly erases the facade of protection his apathy once offered.
For A Silver Dollar
Director: Josh Baxter
Country: United States; Running Time: 11 min
A young writer tells the story of a man’s encounter with a notorious Southwest Louisiana outlaw, and how the promise of a silver dollar meant the difference between life and death.
For the Love of Money
Director: Joseph Kowalski
Country: Canada, United States; Running Time: 9 min
Brian and Joe, lifelong friends, have a crisis in their friendship after Brian comes into some money.
Friend of the Enemy
Director: Samuel Balas
Country: United States; Running Time: 24 min
Friend of the Enemy is inspired by the true story of a World War II Prisoner of War camp in rural Texas, where German prisoners coexist uneasily with locals wary of sharing their town with the enemy. Lamar, a Texas rancher and World War I veteran hardened by loss and isolation, is assigned a German POW named Jürgen to help with labor on his land. Jürgen is intelligent, polite, and clearly out of place. He’s neither a fanatic nor a villain, but a man trying to survive captivity with dignity. Despite the war and the cultural gulf between them, the two men form an unlikely bond through shared work, mutual restraint, and an unspoken understanding of grief and duty.
Garden Valley
Director: Manuel Navarro
Country: United States; Running Time: 28 min
Inspired by the horrific Mann family murders of spring 1988, Garden Valley follows two friends lost in a haze of hard rock, reckless choices, drugs, and volatile romance. Set against the bleak landscape of the Garden Valley trailer park on San Antonio’s Southside, the story unfolds over one fateful day—April 14, 1988—when their lives descend into chaos, obsession, and the lingering psychological shadows of violence.
I Think I Should Go
Director: Edward Treminio
Country: United States; Running Time: 14 min
When his soon-to-be ex-wife steals his beloved dog, a man enlists the help of his eccentric friend to steal back what is rightfully his.
Insensible Losses
Director: Amanda Williams
Country: United States; Running Time: 9 min
A doctor puts aside concerns about her own pregnancy as she works to care for a miscarrying patient.
Lay Lefty Down
Director: Traven Rice
Country: United States; Running Time: 15 min
Two women unexpectedly unite through stories of grief and laughter, after their family throws a surprise memorial for a left breast.
My Hero
Director: Jassica Magaye
Country: United Kingdom; Running Time: 15 min
From zero to hero, we follow the life of Nathen, whose life has been pushed around for too long. He soon encounters his alter ego who transforms into his hero and battles on his behalf in difficult situations. However, Nathen quickly discovers that a hero’s journey can lead to complicated consequences.
Paradiso
Director: Enrico Mastracchi Manes
Country: Italy; Running Time: 28 min
On the day he is dying, a reclusive war poet in Rome receives an unexpected visit from a mysterious woman who pulls him back into music, memory, and love. She is not there by accident. She is the wife he lost years earlier, returned to guide him home.
Puzzles
Director: Brett Eitzen
Country: United States; Running Time: 9 min
Years after inheriting the family farm, Samantha has a long overdue conversation with her deceased father about life, loss, and unspoken expectations.
Quiet
Director: Lisa Dreher
Country: United States; Running Time: 4 min
A man stops by his Hispanic neighbors’ house only to find it abandoned and quiet.
Rebel Heart
Director: Rebeca Duran
Country: United States; Running Time: 9 min
Set in the turbulent year of 1881 in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, Rebel Heart tells the story of Paulita Maxwell, a strong-willed young woman navigating the complexities of life amidst the backdrop of the Lincoln County Wars. As the daughter of one of the region’s most powerful families, Paulita struggles with the expectations placed upon her, particularly in a world dominated by men.
Shift
Director: Sisi Liu
Country: United States; Running Time: 21 min
When idealistic rookie cop Ethan Hart is paired with jaded officer Riley Dawson, their opposing philosophies about control and accountability surface on patrol. What begins as routine duty gradually exposes deeper fault lines between them, culminating in a shift that reshapes Ethan’s understanding of power, responsibility, and the cost of wearing the badge.
Silas Graves
Director: Jiri Balcar
Country: United States; Running Time: 19 min
Silas Graves returns to a quiet western town haunted by whispers of witchcraft and a violent past. Before long, strange events begin to suggest that some stories are better left buried.
Sundown
Director: Todd Hartsell
Country: United States; Running Time: 14 min
A faded one-hit wonder confronts the haunting truth behind his only hit song when the daughter of a lost love reappears with the past in her hands.
The Border Czar
Director: Raymond T. Williams
Country: Costa Rica; Running Time: 12 min
After delivering a rousing speech on immigration, Rep. Jim Coolidge goes to sleep – only to wake up on the wrong side of the border.
The Last Stagecoach West
Director: Martin Moll
Country: Germany; Running Time: 15 min
1872, deep in the forests of the German Empire: Two orphaned and penniless siblings put everything on the line to rob a stagecoach and make their dream of a new life in America a reality — but caught between hunger, greed and betrayal, their escape threatens to turn into tragedy.
The Lone Angler
Director: Giselle Calderon
Country: United States; Running Time: 5 min
A mysterious individual enters a saloon in a human-desolate town occupied by anthropomorphic sea creatures. He hides a secret that, if revealed, could put his life on the line. This secret becomes difficult to keep when robbers barge in. Will the individual stand by idly or will he risk it all to save the aquatic patrons?
The Pearl Comb
Director: Ali Cook
Country: United Kingdom; Running Time: 20 min
In 1893, a fisherman’s wife becomes the first person to cure someone of tuberculosis. A doctor, intent on proving a woman’s place is in the home and not practicing medicine, investigates – only to discover the source of her unearthly power.
The Stolen Future
Director: Vedd V Rawtaani
Country: India; Running Time: 18 min
On a stormy night, Myra, drunk and distraught, hits what appears to be a little girl on an empty road. But there’s no body, only memories of a past crime she thought was buried. Drawn into an abandoned hostel, Myra encounters a mechanic who isn’t who he seems, and a series of spectral figures: a teenager, a middle-aged woman, and an old lady in white. Together they reveal the truth: she once killed a child and hid the body, and these are the ghosts of her stolen future. Tormented by the ghosts and hunted by sewn-mouthed revenants, Myra is forced into the same fridge where she once left her victim to die.
The Way of the Cookie
Director: Clint McCrocklin
Country: United States; Running Time: 14 min
In the heart of New Braunfels during the Cookie Wars. A mysterious Stranger and Dude help the town of Jolie out as they are being ransacked by Vendell McBro and his cookie gang called the Crumblers. They enlist the help of their sensei to teach them the ways of Cookiejitsu to fend these cookie thieves off and help save the town.
Elegy of Salt
Director: Addie Akina Knoll
Country: United States; Running Time: 17 min
On the shores of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, a photographer with generations of family history on Antelope Island and a Shoshone elder reflect on their relationships with a landscape facing an environmental crisis.
Hog Heaven: The Pigz Brotherz Story
Director: Scott Simerly Jr.
Country: United States; Running Time: 11 min
For 40 years, the Pigz Brotherz have been a staple of Raleigh’s music scene at the iconic Berkeley Cafe, but as the city changes, what happens to the art that built it? Through the eyes of Danny Squires, the band’s charismatic lead singer, we witness a journey of resilience, nostalgia, and transformation, both personal and in the city at large.
James Magee and the Hill
Director: Quin Mathews
Country: United States; Running Time: 14 min
Artist James Magee spent over forty years building installation in the West Texas desert, El Paso. Often working alone or with one assistant, Magee constructed four stone buildings, in the shape of an equidistant cross, containing his large steel-and-glass sculptures. James Magee and The Hill takes the viewer to the artist’s studio and to The Hill, which he worked on until his death in 2024. Magee and The Hill have been profiled in The New York Times and several international art magazines.
The Vanishing One
Director: Dr. Alongkot Chookaew
Country: Thailand; Running Time: 10 min
We follow the journey of a young girl into the heart of southern Thailand where she searches for the pangolin. This isn’t just about a creature, but it’s about quiet resistance, a living hope, and the belief that understanding leads to protection and to understand why they had to be hunted or why their scales are so valuable. It’s a call to listen before silence is all that’s left.
Wonderful World with Clint Townsend
Director: Michael Dean Marbach
Country: United States; Running Time: 13 min
Wonderful World with Clint Towsend follows Clint — a man whose body is being taken from him by one of the most unforgiving diseases known — and yet whose spirit refuses to follow. From the shock of diagnosis to the daily reality of living with ALS, Clint’s story is carried by the people around him: family and friends who show up, again and again, in ways that matter.
MUSIC VIDEOS
Lucy
Director: Lisa Belcher
Country: United States; Running Time: 6 min
From the movie House of Abraham.
Texas Heat
Director: Jody Stelzig
Country: United States; Running Time: 8 min
When a rag-tag group of outlaws’ stumble into a Texas saloon they are forced with two choices. Learn to play music fast or risk jail. Can their descendants break the generational chain of lawlessness? Song written by Keith Michael and the Etta Place band.
Trouble
Director: Jody Stelzig
Country: United States; Running Time: 4 min
Music Video by Keith Michael, Texas artist from the film “Crude”.