Houston Filmmaker’s ‘Red Pearl’ Makes ‘CineSpace’ Finals at Cinema Arts Festival

The 2015 Houston Cinema Arts Festival gets underway Thursday (Nov. 12, 2015) with a unique competition as a part of the week-long event. The Cinema Arts Society has collaborated with NASA on something called "CineSpace" – it's a competition in which filmmakers have been asked to incorporate actual NASA imagery into their movies.

Among the finalists, which will be screened Friday night at 7 at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, is a sci-fi short called Red Pearl. It stars Houstonian Uju Edoziem as a Nigerian woman who travels to Mars.

The short is directed by another Houstonian, filmmaker Wayne Slaten, who tells Houston Public Media's Music from the Movies host Brad Sayles he couldn't pass up the chance to participate in what he calls a "unique collaboration" between the arts society and NASA.

MORE: Hear Brad Sayles’ expanded conversation with Wayne Slaten.