In its 44 years, the USA Film Festival has become known as a festival that pulls in big name guests, and this year’s event fits that description. John Turturro and Ed Harris will each be showing new films this year, and Linda Gray and Dallas native Morgan Fairchild will be among the honorees receiving festival tributes.

It’s part of what USA managing director Ann Alexander calls the festival’s mission to present live cinema.

“We see no purpose, for example for this spring program, to present a film that we can’t bring in an artist with – especially a film that may open here later,” she tells us this week on The Big Screen. “For us, there’s no purpose to present them unless we can give the audience something different, which would be the artist in attendance. To have that exchange with the audience – what we call live cinema.”

Check out the full lineup for this year’s event on the Art&Seek calendar.

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