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A guide to the Oak Cliff Film Festival's music events and movies

Here's a quick look at the music-themed programming offered at this weekend's Oak Cliff Film Festival. For complete schedules and ticket info, visit oakclifffilmfestival.com.

Station to Station, 7 p.m  June 12 at the Texas Theatre: One of the main issues with music documentaries is that they tend to suffer from low production values or an endless sea of talking heads, giving interviews that fluctuate between bitter and overly academic. Station to Station (After the David Bowie record, most likely) is a bit different. The stylized film's theme revolves around a train taking the crew from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the many artists they encounter along the way. Name acts such as Cat Power, Mavis Staples and Beck are featured alongside more obscure but still relevant musicians. That list includes such notables as New York electronic punk innovators Suicide, dance producer Giorgio Moroder (of Donna Summer "I Feel Love" fame) and Eleanor Friedberger, formerly of the Fiery Furnaces. Visual art fans should take note as well: the documentary features pop art icon Ed Ruscha, conceptual art innovator Lawrence Weiner, and color photography pioneer William Eggleston.

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Theory of Obscurity: A Film About the Residents, 3:30 p.m. June 13 at the Kessler: The Kessler is the perfect setting for this one. The legendarily mysterious group played a two-night stand at the Oak Cliff spot in February 2013, which was an extremely rare appearance. The Residents are an aggressively strange band that has somehow managed to shield the identity of the band members for decades. Never seen without their absurd costumes – including their iconic eyeball and top hat getups which were famously lifted by Ke$ha – the group has been pop music's literal best kept secret since 1966. Theory of Obscurity sheds at least some light on the mythology behind the band whose music, films, and stage show inventiveness have moved many a weirdo in their prolific wake.

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Made in Japan, 3:30 p.m. June 14 at the Kessler: Country music does not have the best track record of being sensitive to the feelings of both Asians and Asian-Americans, and one need look no further than to the anti-Japanese sentiment of World War II where songs such as Carson Robinson's "A Hundred Years from Now" (recorded in 1943) set the xenophobic tone to which some stateside residents felt compelled in that tumultuous era. Imagine the surprise when just a little over two decades later, a Japanese woman named Tomi Fujiyama took the most revered stage in the genre – the Grand Ole Opry – to perform actual country music. A new music documentary produced by actor Elijah Wood and well-known producer and director Morgan Spurlock follows Fujiyama on the path to reliving that fateful and unlikely night in 1964.

Danny Says, 2:45 p.m. June 13 at the Texas Theatre: Behind-the-scenes music business figure Danny Fields had a Forrest Gump-like ability to be in the right place at the right time; he had ties to both Warhol's Factory and some of John Lennon's finer foot-in-mouth moments as a Beatle when Fields worked as a journalist. Although he managed everyone from the Doors to Judy Collins, he wasn't as shocked by the coming onslaught of punk as some of his flower child contemporaries. Not only did he embrace the changing winds of where popular music was headed, he even helped steer them, and ended up managing Iggy Pop and the Ramones in the process. Danny Says ties all of the disparate parts of Fields' life together, and is christened after the namesake song that the Ramones wrote in tribute to their controversial and beloved manager.

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Rock 'n' Roll High School, 5:15 p.m. June 13 at the Texas Theatre: Just for good measure, the Texas Theatre will show the Ramones' absolutely ridiculous Roger Corman production from 1979, Rock 'n' Roll High School. The unsubtle teenage rebellion aspects of the film kept rock a lingering cultural force for at least another dozen years or so after its release, or just long enough for 1991's final alt-rock revolution to play us out of the 20th Century. The film will be shown in 35 mm.

The Sonics, June 13th at the Texas Theatre: Last but not least, Tacoma, Washington band the Sonics will perform at the Texas Theatre. The group formed in 1963 and had a sound that was more distorted and far heavier than what was happening in music at the time. As a result, they are still an oft-cited influence on countless punk and garage rock acts. The dark and terse approach found in the video above ("The Witch") is still as menacing as the day it was released in 1965. This is a chance to see a historically significant band in an equally historic setting. Local punk act the Mind Spiders will also perform – a fitting opener.

Christopher Mosley is digital editor for FD magazine. Follow him on Twitter at @christopmosley.