EXCLUSIVE: Adrian Grenier’s Faith, KJ Apa’s turn as James Stewart, Renée Zellweger’s directing debut and Michael Keaton’s Sweetwater lead a five-day Central Texas celebration, with Revolution’s Daughter closing the festival.

Latin Heat can exclusively reveal that central Texas is getting a new film festival with some formidable names on the marquee. Adrian Grenier, KJ Apa, James Hong, Martin Freeman, Renée Zellweger and Michael Keaton are among the talents represented in the inaugural Leander Film Festival, launching November 11–15, 2026, with a lineup bringing Hollywood icons, Texas premieres, international filmmaking and emerging voices together for five days of cinema.

From the life of screen legend James Stewart to the extraordinary journey of Alina Fernández, Fidel Castro’s daughter, the program spans biographical drama, science fiction, animation, martial arts comedy and documentary. Screenings at venues including Alamo Drafthouse, Film Alley and AMC will anchor a festival experience that also includes filmmaker conversations, industry programming and opportunities to discover the next generation of storytellers.

For Latino audiences, the inaugural edition offers several compelling connections: Puerto Rican actress Paola Andino in the thriller You Can’t Leave; Entourage star Adrian Grenier, whose maternal grandfather is Mexican, in Faith; Julian Works in JIMMY; and the closing-night documentary Revolution’s Daughter, featuring Cuban cultural powerhouses including Gloria Estefan and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz.

Those connections run through a broader slate packed with recognizable talent and Texas ties. Two-time Academy Award winner Zellweger’s first film as a director comes home to her native state. Keaton steps behind the camera while sharing the screen with Kyra Sedgwick. And KJ Apa takes on one of American cinema’s most beloved figures in JIMMY.

KJ Apa and Julian Works Revisit a Screen Legend’s Wartime Story

With JIMMY, the festival turns its attention to James Stewart, an enduring icon of American cinema whose work includes It’s a Wonderful Life, Rear Window and Vertigo. KJ Apa, best known for starring in Riverdale, portrays Stewart in the biographical drama directed by Aaron Burns.

The cast also includes Julian Works, known for 9-1-1: Lone Star and The Long Game, as Second Lieutenant Martinez, a Mexican American pilot who flies alongside Stewart during World War II. As the film follows Stewart’s twenty combat missions and his return to Hollywood, their bond brings a Latino presence into this pivotal chapter of the screen legend’s life.

Works’ connection to The Long Game also extends to the festival’s industry programming. The Texas-shot drama will be among the productions discussed during the festival’s SB22 panel on Texas film incentives, with local producers including Christian Sosa, an executive producer of The Long Game, attending.

Texas-based writer Justin Strawhand is confirmed to attend the screening and red carpet, while co-star Kara Killmer will attend the closing ceremony. Their participation adds a local connection to a film centered on a performer whose legacy reaches across generations.

Adrian Grenier Brings Faith to Its First Public Screening

The festival will host the first public screening of Faith, featuring Adrian Grenier. The locally shot comedy follows an optimistic teacher who takes over as pastor of a small-town Texas church after his father unexpectedly retires amid tragedy. Grenier plays Tyler, a rival pastor.

Grenier, best known for Entourage and The Devil Wears Prada, also brings a Mexican American connection to the lineup through his maternal grandfather. His family’s history was explored on PBS’s Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Shot locally, Faith brings the actor known to television audiences as Vincent Chase in Entourage into a distinctly Texas setting. Its first public showing gives Leander audiences an early opportunity to discover the project, accompanied by exclusive, previously unpublished images.

Paola Andino Joins an Adventurous Genre Lineup

Paola Andino joins the inaugural lineup in You Can’t Leave, directed by Scott Windhauser and also starring Spencer Boldman. The thriller follows a search for a missing sister into a forest with a sinister hold on those who enter.

Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Texas, Andino brings a particularly fitting connection to the festival. Audiences first came to know her as the lead of Nickelodeon’s Every Witch Way, with later credits including Queen of the South and Lisa Frankenstein. Shot in Dallas and produced by Robert Paschall Jr., You Can’t Leave also brings a distinctive screening opportunity: according to festival organizers, Leander is the only festival in the country showing the film during its active theatrical run.

The wider program has plenty for genre fans to explore. James Hong, whose extraordinary career includes Big Trouble in Little China, Kung Fu Panda and Everything Everywhere All at Once, stars in the martial arts comedy Gimme My Money.

Martin Freeman, the Emmy-winning star of Sherlock, Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit trilogy and Everett Ross in Marvel’s Black Panther films, brings further international star power to the lineup with Little Bug. Owen Teale, known to Game of Thrones audiences as Alliser Thorne, stars in Something Pointless, while beloved Texas screen veteran Barry Corbin, whose credits include Urban Cowboy and Northern Exposure, appears in Heaven and Hell.

Together, these selections offer the pleasure of seeing performers associated with major franchises, acclaimed television and landmark films working across an adventurous independent program.

Revolution’s Daughter Brings a Powerful Cuban Story to Closing Night

The festival will close on November 15 at AMC with Revolution’s Daughter, Peabody and Emmy-winning director Thaddeus D. Matula’s documentary about Alina Fernández, her escape from Cuba and the life she built beyond the shadow of her father, Fidel Castro.

The film brings a deeply personal perspective to a story shaped by power, exile, family and identity. Its participants include Gloria Estefan, Nilo Cruz, artist José Bedia and poet and art critic Ricardo Pau-Llosa, placing Fernández’s experience alongside voices with profound connections to Cuban culture.

Local Leander producer John Martinez O’Felan’s involvement connects the closing-night selection to a mission he articulated in his 2022 Latin Heat interview: creating more Latino stories and greater opportunities for Latino talent. Having discussed bringing Fernández’s life to the screen through Alina of Cuba, he now helps bring her own voice to the forefront in Revolution’s Daughter, placing a Cuban woman’s account of family, power and exile at the center of Leander’s closing night.

John Martinez O’Felan will attend alongside fellow producers Austin-based Allen Gilmer, Riki Rushing and Joe Lamy adding further Central Texas connections to the closing-night event.

For Leander’s inaugural closing night, the selection brings an internationally resonant story into a festival that is also celebrating the creative life of its own region.

Zellweger and Keaton Bring Star Power Behind the Camera

Few names carry the combination of critical acclaim and audience affection associated with Renée Zellweger. The star of Bridget Jones’s Diary, Chicago, Cold Mountain and Judy enters a new chapter with They, her directorial debut, which will make its Texas premiere at Leander.

The retro-styled animated short gives audiences a different view of an artist whose performances have helped define some of the most memorable films of the past three decades. For the Texas-born actress, its place in the inaugural lineup adds a home-state connection to a significant creative milestone.

Michael Keaton, whose screen career stretches from Batman and Beetlejuice to Birdman and Spotlight, also brings his work as a director to the festival. He directs and stars opposite Kyra Sedgwick in Sweetwater, a 21-minute science-fiction drama making its Texas premiere.

The film uses a futuristic premise to explore intimate emotional territory. Screenwriter Sean Douglas, Keaton’s son, is confirmed to attend, giving festivalgoers a direct connection to the creative team behind one of the lineup’s most prominent selections.

Hollywood Experience, Texas Ambition

Helping drive the inaugural festival is co-founder Sasha Yelaun, a producer whose credits include The Old Way, starring Nicolas Cage; Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose, featuring Simon Pegg, Minnie Driver and Christopher Lloyd; The Vanished, with Thomas Jane and Anne Heche; and Hellfire, starring Stephen Lang. His experience bringing established screen talent and independent productions together lends Hollywood industry experience to Leander’s ambitious debut.

Yelaun co-founded the festival alongside Mike Herrera, a Leander City Council member and community arts advocate; Laura Davis, founder of Davis Consulting AI; and Diane Herrera, founder and CEO of CSSI Solutions. The founding team brings together film production, civic leadership, communications and business expertise to help establish a new destination for cinema in Central Texas.

The festival operates under the nonprofit Leander Arts & Film Alliance, which supports film, arts, cultural programming and creative education. Its setting has a cinematic history of its own: Leander is a Film Friendly Texas community, and the city’s Bagdad Cemetery appears in the opening of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Five Days of Discovery

The festival begins on Veterans Day, November 11, with a special out-of-competition screening of the animated Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero at the Leander VFW. Across the following days, the program moves between established talent and new discoveries, with Texas filmmaking, student work, international shorts and experimental storytelling sharing the spotlight.

Additional selections include Our House Is on Fire, directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Alice Biletska, alongside Texas-connected work such as Tough Enough, Missing Socks and Let Fall the Rain. Alex Hanno’s psychological thriller Bravado will make its Texas premiere, with star Luca Malacrino confirmed to attend. Academy Award-nominated director Jonathan Heap will also attend with Ghosts of ’45, adding another filmmaker conversation to the inaugural program.

Filmmaker Q&As, workshops, panels, networking events and awards extend the experience beyond the screenings. The festival’s Feature Screenplay & Co-Production Pitch Market will offer cash prizes and development packages to selected finalists, creating another avenue for emerging writers.

For its first edition, Leander is bringing together the appeal of cinema’s celebrated names and the excitement of finding something new. Audiences can encounter Zellweger’s first work behind the camera, Keaton’s latest directing effort, Apa’s portrayal of James Stewart, Grenier’s new comedy and a Cuban documentary with a remarkable cultural ensemble, all within the same five-day program.

The inaugural Leander Film Festival runs November 11–15, 2026, in Central Texas. For passes, screening details and festival updates, visit leanderfilmfestival.com.

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By Cris Franco

Inspired by the much lauded 1999 documentary and its accompanying Grammy-winning album of the same name, Buena Vista Social Club has morphed yet again.  This time into Broadway’s newest mega-hit musical. Playing to packed houses at the Gerald Shoenfeld Theater, it’s a tropical party that pulsates with rapturous Afro-Latino rhythms set against the tumultuous human drama that was mid-century Cuba. 

To bring the era, the artists and their musical masterworks to the stage, book writer Marcos Rodriguez has cleverly blended fact with fiction and woven two parallel story lines.  One, set in the 1950s, follows the talented young singers Omara and Haydee Portuondo who have broken through the color barrier by appearing at Havana’s exclusive (predominantly white) Tropicana night club.  When they are invited to sing at the Afro-Cuban Buena Vista Social Club, the sisters are of different minds. Haydee, who dreams of a recording career for the team, sees no benefit in slumming it among the locals.  She asks why should they perform at the Buena Vista Social Club?  “Because there are no tourists there,” exclaims Omara, “because they’re playing for us!” 

Enter the Cuban Revolution and the impact of Omara’s prophetic words will be echoed throughout the accompanying story line that takes place some forty years later in 1996.  Record producer Juan de Marcos (affable Justin Cunningham) is looking to preserve for posterity that iconic Buena Vista Social Club sound.  His plan: to reunite the original musicians for a historic recording. De Marcos’ efforts in locating and reuniting those veteran artists takes the audience into a unique theatrical experience. We journey back in time to a place where smoking-hot musicians pioneer a raw, sensual, celebratory Latin-jazz that sets the room dancing to songs recounting the highs and lows of island life and tells of the saga of one woman’s journey to preserve the purity of her art.   

That woman is the musical’s central character, the now older Omara Portuondo (Tony-nominee, the regal Natalie Venetia Belcon).  We learn that when Young Haydee fled Cuba with their American record contract in hand, Young Omara opted to stay and keep alive the authentic music of her homeland.  Which she did for the next forty years. 

Fast forward to the 1990s where de Marcos is pulling together some of the original Buena Vista Social Club musicians.  Through these meetings we learn their sometimes heartbreaking backstories of survival and witness their time-tested talents. All want to participate — only Omara is holding out. But after much cajoling, soul searching and hearing the musical magic they create — she finally agrees to be their lead singer.  Joining her to perform these pure versions of classic Cuban “bolero,” “guajira” and “danzon” are guitarist-singer Compay Segundo (Da’Von T. Moody), pianist Rubén González (Leonardo Reyna), and vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer (Wesley Wray).  All are gifted at presenting these songs in the unbridled Afro-Cuban Spanish dialect.  (Kudos to the creators for wisely choosing to not translate these highly stylized lyrics into American English, but rather allowing the original words and music to speak for themselves.) 

And what songs!  The show features such classic as the slow ballad of “Chan Chan” who, while at the beach, was so taken by his love for his woman, Juanica, that when she shook her body to shake off some sand, Chan Chan grew embarrassed of his desire for her.  

“El Cumbanchero,” an uptempo about a party animal who dances the cumbia.  The song’s fun-loving main character lives each day to the beat of the bongo.  “El Cumbanchero” was made famous by Desi Arnaz who first recorded it in the mid 1940s and later performed it on his TV show, I Love Lucy”,  “El Carretero” a guajira (country lament) about a hard working cart driver — a traveler who dreams of one day marrying and settling down but for now is a guajiro (peasant) going about his job. These quotidian story songs and many more fill the Buena Vista Social Club with an intimate look at the simple truths of the value of living life to its fullest.  

Immersing us deeper into the show’s exploration of the human condition is the evocative and sensual choreography (Tony-nominated Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck), versatile and elegant set design (Tony-nominated Arnulfo Maldonado) and a tight compelling book by Tony-nominated Marco Ramirez.  The result: the Buena Vista Social Club creates a cultural collage of the Afro-Cuban experience that explodes with color, movement to the tune of the world’s most iconic tropical music. 

The historic ensemble consist of Julio Monge as Compay, Mel Semé as Ibrahim, Jainardo Batista Sterling as Ruben, Isa Antonetti as Young Omara, Renesito Avich as Eliades, Ashley De La Rosa as Young Haydee, with Angélica Beliard, Carlos Falú, Héctor Juan Maisonet, Ilda Mason, Marielys Molina, and Anthony Santos in the ensemble.  

Recreating the sound that launched a thousand fiestas are the virtuosos Marco Paguia (conductor & piano), Henry Paz (woodwinds), Jesus Ricardo (trumpet), Eddie Venegas (trombone), Javier Diaz (percussion), Roman Diaz (percussion), David Oquendo (guitar), Resesito Avich (tres chordophone guitar) and Gustavo Schwartz (bass). 

How good is Buena Vista Social Club?  You don’t need to be a Cuban music aficionado or even understand Spanish to be swept away by the transporting beat of the 12-member onstage orchestra accompanying the gifted singing cast and the three dancing couples that so beautifully interpret the music in a mix of dance styles from Afro-Cuban to ballroom. This reviewer was enthralled by how organically the stories, songs and dance all supported each other in a seamless exploration of how artistic expression can help keep alive the soul of a people in crisis.  And amid the hoots and bravos from the entranced audience swaying in their seats, you will have no other choice but to be also swept away by the celebration of life on stage. I recommend that everyone see the Buena Vista Social Club on Broadway or by way of the national tour now preparing to bring to our world in crisis its healing message: the opposite of war is creation.  And the Buena Vista Social Club is a joyous, healing, creative masterpiece.

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About eight years ago, Andy Señor Jr. produced and directed the restaging of the Broadway musical hit Rent in Havana, Cuba. He captured his effort in the documentary film Revolution Rent debuting on HBO on June 15.

“When we began working on the production of Rent in Cuba and documenting the journey along the way, I had no idea how the story would unfold and that our documentary would end up on HBO,” says Señor Jr. 

Produced by Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment, the documentary is executive produced by actor Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother). “Andy and I started our Rent journey together many years ago and I was proud to see him take his talents to Cuba,” says Harris. He adds the film is a continuation of their journey and a “tribute to the power of theater and its ability to transform lives.” 

The doc follows Señor Jr. to the island nation, where he is tasked with directing a stage production of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent, which was making history. It was the communist country’s first Broadway musical produced by an American company in more than 50 years. The son of Cuban immigrant exiles, Señor Jr. embarks on a personal journey in the land of his parents. 

RENT‘S ‘ANGEL’
Rent the musical figures prominently in the career of the Miami-born stage actor-turned-filmmaker. Upon graduating from Florida International University with a degree in theater in 1997, Señor Jr. made his professional acting debut in the acclaimed musical in the role of “Angel” on Broadway. He also joined the musical’s London’s West End production as well as U.S. national and international tours, according to his biography on the website of Nederlander. After about eight years as “Angel,” the actor became the producer of Rent’s Off-Broadway revival for one year before assuming the position of restaging director for the musical in Japan, South Korea and Cuba. 

Along the way he also got involved in other theatre productions, including On Your Feet! the Broadway musical based on the music from the multiple Grammy Award-winning couple Gloria and Emilio Estefan. Señor Jr. pursued film, too. He acted in minor roles in movies like You Can’t Stop the Beat and provided additional voices for HBO’s family version of Spy Kids.

DIRECTORIAL DEBUT
Revolution Rent marks Señor Jr.’s film directorial debut. “I am beyond thrilled to share this deeply personal and magical moment in our lives and I’m grateful that Jonathan Larson’s words and music are still making such an impact, 25 years later,” says the filmmaker referring to the writer and composer of the rock musical. Loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s 1896 opera La Bohème, Larson’s Rent tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling in Lower Manhattan’s East Village at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

“Traveling to Cuba to make this film was incredibly challenging yet rewarding in ways I never imagined,” says Victor Patrick Alvarez (The Bigger Picture), who also co-directs and co-produces. “Revolution Rent is about creativity in the face of adversity and the healing powers of human connection.”

Also producing the documentary are Scott Fenn and Christine O’Malley. Other executive producers include Brooke Christian, Robert Nederlander Jr., Marvin Kaplan, Jacob Parker, Stanley Browne, Zoe Chapin, Shea Martin, Karim Amer and Mark Berger.

The film’s June 15 debut will coincide with the 25th anniversary of Rent’s premiere on Broadway. The film will also be available for streaming on HBO Max.

The film traveled the festival circuit, screening at DOC NYC, Key West Film Festival and Miami International Film Festival.

Featured Photo: ‘Revolution Rent.’ Credit: HBO

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