AFS Cinema Invites You Home for the Holidays

The category of holiday film stretches around this time of year to fit basically any kino sufficiently comforting or wintry, if comfort’s in short supply. Such is the thread running through this year’s selections for AFS Cinema’s Home for the Holidays series – an annual tradition where Austin’s foremost indie cinema programs screenings to get you through the yuletide. All four features – kickoff pick 8 Women (Dec. 21-27), returning champ The Thin Man (Dec. 22-25), Bowie prisoner piece Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Dec. 23-25), and all-time classic The Apartment (Dec. 26-31) – offer a little cinematic respite from the blustering and busy weeks around Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s Eve. 

In the opinion of lead programmer Lars Nilsen, Home for the Holidays hits right when most people are taking a break. “We’re not removed from our regular obligations to family and friends,” he says, “but the heat’s a little off by common consensus.” Here in the cinema, Nilsen explains, is a chance to reflect on what’s been a pretty wild year through films ranging from humorous to heartrending. “It’s a time when I’m honestly probably giving myself permission to have a few more drinks than I otherwise would,” he adds.

But what sets the seasonal picks of AFS apart from, as Nilsen puts it, “a mall movie theatre that might choose to show Christmas With the Kranks,” is their eye toward more eclectic viewers. These pictures are “really films that are about what the holidays are like for the cosmopolitan bohemian arthouse filmgoing type of person,” he says. This year’s arthouse hounds will enjoy director François Ozon’s French mystery thriller 8 Women, which fits franco film rock stars Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, and Emmanuelle Béart all in one feature. Dashiell Hammett adaptation The Thin Man is another solid cinéaste select and has held up as an AFS favorite.

“I see no reason not to play [The Thin Man] every year,” Nilsen says, “because people show up every year. There’s just something about drinking martinis and watching a fast-paced, funny old Hollywood movie with a cute dog that people really seem to like. I think a lot of people have made it a holiday tradition.”

Both The Apartment and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence offer an ironic rebuttal to the series’ home-centric title. Billy Wilder’s romantic story prominently features lead Jack Lemmon repeatedly forced out of his titular abode, and Nagisa Ōshima’s World War II tale of four men stuck in a Japanese POW camp shows a grimmer take on being away from home. “There is a kind of sick humor that we indulge every year in choosing a movie that is just absolutely not a fun Christmas classic,” Nilsen says. “The absolute opposite of White Christmas, and that’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, certainly, this year for us.”

Even though it’s programmed for the cinephile who considers the theatre their sanctuary, Nilsen says Home for the Holidays’ other big clientele is folks who’ve never been to AFS before. The series gives the cinema a chance to “let people know through this programming what we’re all about,” he says.

“We’re not trying to create some sort of honey trap where we’re playing It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, or something like that – giving an impression of the kinds of movies that we play, that we don’t play,” Nilsen says. “[These are] the kind of movies that we play. So come and see us during the holidays. If you like what we’re playing, then you are truly a sick person, and you will enjoy what we’re doing the rest of the year.”

This article appears in December 19 • 2025.