Post-film discussion with “Tendaberry” star Kota Johan and Houston-born and raised writer/director Haley Elizabeth Anderson

The opening-night selection for the 2024 Houston Cinema Arts Festival, from writer/director Haley Elizabeth Anderson, is a kinetic portrait of Dakota (Kota Johan), a twentysomething New York City transplant adrift in post-pandemic Brooklyn. When her boyfriend (Yuri Pleskun) is called back to his native Ukraine to care for his ailing father, Dakota is forced to navigate the city and its hardships alone and pregnant. Buzzing through the streets, she flits from job to job, moment to moment, creating memories of her own along the way.

Tendaberry makes use of Anderson’s own DV recordings, photographs by Helen Levitt, and the video diaries of Nelson Sullivan, who captured New York City's dilapidated 1980s downtown in 1,900 hours of footage, to craft an Impressionist character study of person and place. Audacious, ambitious—words do little justice when describing the scale of the collection of memories contained in this feature-length debut, an ecstatic love letter to New York City and the changes each season can bring to a life.

Order Tickets on Houston Cinema Arts Festival Website

Plan Your Visit

• This screening takes place in Brown Auditorium Theater on the lower level of the Law Building.
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