H-E-B Presents Our Texas Movie Night to celebrate the Texas State Parks Centennial on 11/4
Following a successful launch of the H-E-B Presents: An Our Texas, Our Future film series, the retailer is taking its award-winning nature docuseries to the great outdoors with Alamo Drafthouse’s Rolling Roadshow on Nov. 4 at Guadalupe River State Park to celebrate 100 Years of Texas State Parks. Tickets are now available for the program, which will include a screening of H-E-B’s five-part docuseries, outdoor concert featuring Texas-born country music artist Jess Williamson, barbecue dinner from H-E-B True Texas BBQ, and more. The Rolling Roadshow, which features outdoor movies and cinematic events beyond theaters, is a signature series the Alamo Drafthouse has provided for more than a decade.
General admission and limited glamping tickets are available for the family-friendly event, which starts at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4. The evening outdoors will begin with Jess Williamson who is part of the Texas Park & Wildlife Foundation’s Texas Wild vinyl album, launching 11/28. After the Our Texas, Our Future docuseries will be a live, post-show Q&A with environmental experts and filmmakers; special screening of a family-friendly movie; and all tickets include a free event-branded Alamo Drafthouse commemorative poster and blanket, plus a free day park admission to Guadalupe River State Park.
There are a limited number of tickets available for this special event, and tickets must be purchased online in advance. All ticket sales for the event will go toward a $10,000 donation to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation (TPWF) for the benefit of the Texas State Parks Centennial Fundraising campaign. As the presenting sponsor for the Texas State Parks 100 Years celebration, H-E-B also made a $1 million donation last year to TPWF to support programming throughout 2023 aimed to engage all Texans in discovering and enjoying the nearly 90 state parks in Texas.
“H-E-B has a deep commitment to help protect, conserve, and beautify our great state for all Texans to enjoy, now and for future generations,” said Leslie Sweet, H-E-B Managing Director of Sustainability & Environmental Affairs. “We’re excited to take our award-winning docuseries on the road and provide an opportunity for people to see the work of these passionate filmmakers while enjoying the beauty of the Texas outdoors.”
In this five-film docuseries, H-E-B, through its Our Texas, Our Future commitment, brings attention to important work being done across the state to protect delicate wildlife habitats, threatened animal species, as well as showcase the wonders and splendors of the Texas outdoors. These five films look at the creation and diversity of the Texas State Parks system as well as tell compelling stories from Texans working to preserve habitats for bats, black bears, ocelots, and redfish.
The film, titled “Batsies,” which was directed by award-winning filmmaker Elizabeth Unger, was recently named Best Short Film in Conservation at the Jackson Wild Media awards, which is an awards ceremony that is considered the highest bar of achievement in natural history filmmaking. “Batsies” follows passionate Texas State University wildlife biologists as they work against the clock to find a way to save the bats, while breaking barriers of their own.
“It’s an honor to receive the Best Conservation Short award from Jackson Wild for our genre-bending film, Batsies. We believe outside-the-box storytelling can inspire a sense of awe and wonder across audiences. Our film aims to do just that, showcasing a deep love for bats beautifully,” said Elizabeth Unger, director of “Batsies.”
“Batsies” has been screened at prestigious film festivals across the nation, including Mountainfilm, International Wildlife Film Festival, Hill Country Film Festival, and Science New Wave. “Ranching with Ocelots” has been chosen for the Lone Star Film Festival later this year.
For the visual storytelling project, H-E-B worked with Austin-based Fin and Fur Films, an award-winning team led by director and founder Ben Masters, and features original music from the Austin-based band Shane Smith & The Saints and narration by Shane Smith. The films are all available to view at OurTexasOurFuture.com and are expected to air on PBS stations in Texas early next year.
The documentary series is part of the retailer’s ongoing sustainability pledge to reduce its impact on the environment through waste diversion efforts along with several other programs to help conserve and protect our great state, now and for generations to come. Through the company’s Our Texas, Our Future commitment, H-E-B’s mission is to increase awareness and education around sustainability efforts that help preserve land, water, and air in Texas.
Since 2012, H-E-B has given more than $20 million to over 500 environmental organizations in land and water conservation, habitat and coastal preservation, and community cleanups. Additionally, Field & Future by H-E-B products supports Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation in efforts such as coastal conservation along the Texas Gulf Coast, Black Bear restoration in West Texas, and the establishment of Palo Pinto Mountains State Park, the first new state park to be opened in North Texas in 25 years.
Throughout the year, H-E-B supports several nonprofits working to help conserve wildlife habitats in Texas such as the committed nonprofits associated with the docuseries films, which include Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute, Bat Conservation International, Austin Bat Refuge, Borderlands Research Institute, Coastal Conservation Association, Galveston Bay Foundation, Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation.
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema was founded in 1997 as a single-screen mom and pop repertory theater in Austin, TX. Twenty-six years later, with 39 locations and counting, Alamo Drafthouse has been called “the best theater in America” by Entertainment Weekly and “the best theater in the world” by Wired. Alamo Drafthouse has built a reputation as a movie lover’s oasis not only by combining best-in-class food and drink service with the movie-going experience, but also introducing unique programming and high-profile, star-studded special events. Alamo Drafthouse created Fantastic Fest, a world-renowned genre film festival dubbed “The Geek Telluride” by Variety featuring independents, international filmmakers, and major Hollywood studios. Alamo Drafthouse continues to expand its brand in new and exciting ways, including the American Genre Film Archive, a non-profit film archive dedicated to preserving, restoring and sharing film, and with several new theaters announced for this year and beyond.
