42th USA Film Festival offers a retrospective of Alexander Payne films

Alexander Payne Retrospective Kicks Off Dallas Release of The Descendants
Series Presented by the USA Film Festival and the Angelika Film Center Dallas

The USA Film Festival and the Angelika Film Center Dallas will partner to present a retrospective film series featuring the films of writer/director Alexander Payne from November 7 10, 2011 at the Angelika Film Center Dallas, 5321 E. Mockingbird Lane. The retrospective series will conclude on November 14 with a special preview screening of Payne’s new film, The Descendants, which opens in Dallas on November 18, 2011.

The series schedule is as follows:

Monday, November 7 -- CITIZEN RUTH
Tuesday, November 8 -- ELECTION
Wednesday, November 9 -- ABOUT SCHMIDT
Thursday, November 10 -- SIDEWAYS
Monday, November 14 -- Preview of THE DESCENDANTS

All showtimes are 7:30pm.

General admission seating for each retrospective screening is $6; Tickets are free for USAFF members. The preview screening of The Descendants is free (limited availability).


The Angelika box office opens daily at 11:00am for all shows except The Descendants. Tickets for The Descendants will be available after 7:00pm on day of show, only.

For additional information about the series, visit www.AngelikaFilmCenter.com/Dallas or www.Facebook.com/USAFilmFestival.

This program is made possible with support from Fox Searchlight Pictures.

About The Descendants
Set in Hawaii, The Descendants is a sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic journey for Matt King (George Clooney), an indifferent husband and father of two girls, who is forced to re-examine his past and embrace his future when his wife suffers a boating accident off of Waikiki. The event leads to a rapprochement with his young daughters while Matt wrestles with a decision to sell the family’s land handed down from Hawaiian royalty and missionaries.

About Alexander Payne
Alexander Payne won his first award in 1991 from the USA Film Festival in Dallas for his short film The Passion of Martin in the Festival's National Short Film & Video Competition. Twenty years later, Payne has established himself as one of this generation's best storytellers, bringing intelligence, humanity, and a skewed sense of humor and delicious irony to his modern classics. Payne won an Academy Award (best screenplay) for Sideways.