If you pay close attention to my website, you’ve likely noticed some significant changes to my festival coverage this year. I’ve been covering film festivals since 2022, seventeen in total so far. (I’m currently in the midst of working on my Oak Cliff Film Festival 2026 experience.) This year, for the first time, I added the Denton Black Film Festival to my roster, and, in a first for the site, I covered an out-of-state fest at Tribeca 2026. On the negative side of the ledger, I was also denied press credentials to SXSW for the first time since 2023, and I haven’t been invited back to my beloved Fantastic Fest since the same year.
That’s a long-winded way of announcing that some changes are also coming to what has become one of my favorite movie events of the year since its 2023 inception. For its fourth year, the It Came From Texas Film Festival is packing up the tumble weeds and ten-gallon hats and heading for the stars.
The brain-child of local Dallas PR maven Kelly Kitchens, ICFTX 2026 is teaming up with Garland Cultural Arts to boldly go to the stars for one action-packed day in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Star Trek phenomenon. Star Trek might seem a bit far afield as the focus for a festival that’s past themes have included Lone Star Cinema, the Independent Texas Spirit, and True Texas Tales. But, would you be surprised to learn that the man behind “beam me up, Scotty,” tribbles, and “live long and prosper,” was born right here in the Lone Star State? Gene Roddenberry, creator and overseer of the Star Trek franchise until his 1991 death, was born in El Paso.
In celebration of the milestone anniversary of one of the most beloved franchises in television and film history, ICFTX has programmed twelve jam-packed hours of events on Saturday, September 12, 2026 at two locations. The bulk of activity will be happening at the city-owned Plaza Theatre, located at 521 W. State Street, Garland, TX, 75040. Meanwhile, only one block away, at the Garland Central Library, you’ll be able to dig deeper into all things Star Trek at the library’s Boldly Going to Garland Exploration Hub.
The day kicks off at the Plaza, at ten a.m., with a welcome and a muti-city intergalactic proclamation reading from Garland’s Mayor Pro Tem Christopher Ott, celebrating 60 years of Star Trek alongside River City, Iowa, the future birthplace of Captain Kirk, and Ticonderoga, New York, location of the Star Trek original series set tour.
Several trivia events, with prizes, will be held throughout the day. Pre- and post-screening panels and Q&A sessions are also scheduled. Dr. Christopher Gonzalez, whose scholarship explores Latinx performers in science fiction, will speak about Star Trek’s vision of diversity.
University of Texas at Arlington Planetarium Director Levent Gurdemir and Planetarium Coordinator McKenna Dowd will also be on hand to discuss the cosmos and otherworldly phenomena as it relates to the Star Trek franchise. There will also be a costume contest in the evening. Available throughout the day at the Exploration Hub at the Garland Central Library will be a Federation Vendor Market and exhibitions of Star Trek fan films and blooper reels from Star Trek: The Original Series. Hands-on events at the Exploration Hub include a “Bind Your Own Captain’s Log” workshop, combadges painting, and a Make a Tribble! class.
Obviously, It Came From Texas wouldn’t be much of a film festival without some screenings. Boldy Going to Garland offers some specially themed screenings spanning much of Star Trek’s sixty years of exploring strange new worlds. First up is a screening of an episode from Star Trek: TOS. Space Seed, from 1967, introduces the crew of the USS Enterprise to a one Khan Noonien Singh. (As a fan of the currently-in-production Star Trek series Strange New Worlds, I’ve enjoyed how that show incorporates the Khan mythos via one of Strange New Worlds’ core characters.)
After a lunch break, Space Seed will be followed up by a very apropos entry in the series of films featuring the original cast. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan picks up the story of the genetically engineered madman, featuring a deliciously scenery-chewing performance from the inimitable Ricardo Montalbán as Singh, and Shatner’s classic line delivery of “KHAAAAAAAAAAN!” that launched a thousand memes decades later.
KHAAAAAAAAAN!
The evening screenings begin with a trip to the Delta Quadrant. Blink of an Eye is a 2000 episode of Star Trek: Voyager in which the crew of the lost-in-space starship encounter a primitive planet that evolves right before their eyes. Eventually, a hyper-evolving species does what all advanced, super-intelligent species do: they develop weapons and start killing things. Captain Janeway must take action to keep her crew safe when the weapons are turned… ON THEM!
ICFTX 2026 will wind down with a final screening of the 2009 Star Trek, director J.J. Abrams’s attempt at Star Wars-ing up what had become, at that point, a rather creaky franchise before the MCU showed up to point the way towards the never-ending tentpole blockbuster franchise addiction with which Hollywood is currently obsessed. Before the screening, Barney Burman will be in attendance to speak about the work he did on Abrams’s Star Trek, which resulted in the first – and, to date, only – Oscar awarded to the franchise. Burman is a make-up artist and part of the team that took home the Oscar hardware at the 2010 ceremony for their hard work.
There’s also a raffle at ICFTX 2026 in which they’ll give away a Star Trek: TOS Captain’s Chair, built in house by the Granville Arts Center technical staff. All sales will be donated to the Reel Owl Cinema Club, a four-year high school International Baccalaureate Diploma Program offered at Garland High School. Several restaurants in the area are also getting in on the fun by offering Star Trek-themed drinks – with names like the Rye Long & Prosper and the Cosmic Cooler – throughout the month of September.
I’m excited to hype up the fourth edition of It Came From Texas, but, sadly, I won’t be in attendance this year because of a conflicting personal obligation. However, the confluence of Star Trek’s sixtieth anniversary and ICFTX’s Boldly Going to Garland theme this year coincides with Rae and me going on our own journey with the franchise.
Rae is a bigger Star Trek fan than I am – when forced to choose, I’ll take Star Wars every time – and we decided to go through the entire series, picking at it here and there over a few years. (This project might have been included in negotiations to get Rae to watch one of my all-time favorite series, The X-Files, which… she hates.) We decided to do a top ten of the original series (because TOS is LONG and very DRY y’all, and there are approximately 800 episodes), but we’ve finished Next Gen, are three seasons into DS9, and have recently made Voyager our “something to watch right before going to sleep” show.
With any luck, we’ll be through every Star Trek show before the 2030s hit. So, while I won’t be at ICFTX 2026 in person, I will certainly be there in spirit. You can get every last deet about Boldly Going to Garland and buy all-day passes at the festival website.
Live long and watch movies!
