Beaumont native and film director Kate Cokinos talked with Lamar University students, Feb. 25, in the Communication Building.
Growing up, Cokinos said she spent a lot of time at local theaters such as the Gaylynn, Gateway Cinema, Liberty Theater and Jefferson Theater.
“I just loved movies,” Cokinos said. “My dad had a Super 8 camera and he loved to film home movies. So, I grew up with a camera, you know, with my dad with a camera and showing movies that he would film of the family.”
Cokinos attended Texas A&M University in 1986 where she created the art film society. She then moved to Houston and started working with the Southwest Alternate Media Project, a nonprofit media arts organization which compiles documentaries and feature films.
“That’s where I got my first overall idea of movies, what movies can be,” she said. “It’s not all Hollywood films. To see these personal films done all in one location, you know, a community of people getting together, making a film, a great story.”
After meeting Texas film director Richard Linklater, Cokinos moved to Austin to help with his production, “Slacker,” and took over the Austin Film Society from 1990 to 1995. The society showed films and worked on locations. Cokinos worked on “Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and was the assistant location manager on “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.”
“I did a bunch of short films, and then I did my first feature, ‘Portrait of a Girl as a’ Young Cat,” she said. “I filmed it in Austin and Beaumont in 1997 and it came out in 2000. Then I got married and moved to Brooklyn, started a family, and just started writing scripts.
“I wrote and directed a film called ‘I Dream Too Much’ that we filmed in Saugerties, where I lived in 2014.”
Cokinos plans to shoot her next movie, “The Do-Right,” adapted from the book by Lisa Sandli, in Southeast Texas.
“It’s kind of a crime mystery nove set in 1973 in Beaumont,” she said. “That’s why I’m back down (here) doing location scouting, meeting with people who could potentially work on crew and do casting here. So, super excited.”
As a film director, Cokinos said she has to be as prepared as possible before walking out onto a film set.
“You can allow for things to happen without being stressed out about it,” she said. “I love rehearsing with actors.
“They have the script, but I like for them to take over the character and work with them on how to make it their own.”
Cokinos’s husband is her director of photography and also her editor which leads to the couple being efficient when they are filming.
“We move pretty fast because he knows what he needs, what he’s going to need, what footage he needs in the editing room, so that really cuts down on a lot of production time,” she said.
Cokinos writes her own scripts and directing them means she has flexibility when she works with her actors.
“I just love when you’re taking the script and fusing it in through the actors on location,” she said. “I just find it to be this incredible challenge that I just love. It’s invigorating.
“I’m just really excited to be back in Beaumont, and I’m just excited to film here.”
Cokinos plans to start filming “The Do-Right’ in spring 2026.