East Texas and the Piney Woods: every independent screen a filmmaker can book.

East Texas has no drive-in, no art house, and no independent multiplex to speak of. The nearest drive-in with a rental form is Moonstruck, in the Houston edition. What it has is a set of city-owned historic theaters that rent for film with rate sheets on the internet, one nonprofit single screen in Mineola that has shown movies since 1920, and five festivals, four of them shorts-only, that are the real way a film gets in front of a room here. And a warning: the Pines in Lufkin says every weekend for the rest of 2026 is booked. Plan weeknights, or plan 2027.

This is the East Texas edition of the statewide directory. Every entry was checked against the venue’s own website on September 4, 2026. Published rates are linked, not repeated. Anything not on the venue’s site is not stated here.

The rooms you can rent.

Liberty Hall in Tyler is a 300-seat downtown theater operated by the city that runs live music, comedy, and movies, and hosts the Tyler Film Festival. Rent Liberty Hall publishes package rates by use, with a movie and presentation package as its own line, and links a 2026 contract snapshot that says the useful things: the renter carries any film licensing, the renter sells the tickets on a seat map the hall provides, the contract and full payment are due within two weeks, and October, November, December, and February are peak season with a sixty-day no-refund window. A filmmaker screening their own film has no licensing to carry. Say so. Email is LibertyHall@TylerTexas.com.

The Texan Theater in Kilgore is owned by the city and managed for rentals by REEL East Texas, the 501(c)(3) behind the REEL East Texas Film Festival. Rent the Texan links a 2024 rate sheet with day and hourly rates that step down from Saturday to weekday, a nonprofit discount, a cleaning fee, and optional hourly A/V staff you can replace with your own. Book at least 48 hours ahead; cancel thirty days out for a full refund. A liability form uploads during booking. Email is events@reeleasttexas.com. The city has ongoing renovation work on the building, per Visit Kilgore.

The Pines Theater in Lufkin is a 452-seat city-owned house managed since 2019 by the Angelina Arts Alliance, which lists private film nights among its rentals. The rental form asks whether you are a 501(c)(3), says rentals must align with the alliance’s cultural mission, allows three business days for a reply, and states that all Friday through Sunday dates for the remainder of 2026 are fully booked. No rates published.

The Old Town Theatre in Huntsville is a 350-seat historic house on the square, run by the Friends of Old Town Theatre, a 501(c)(3), and it is the only venue in the region with a published movie-screening rate separate from its live rate. The leasing rates page splits that rate by whether you charge admission and by weeknight versus weekend, and adds deposits, a damage fee, and a technician fee. Playback is DVD or Blu-ray on a large projection screen; no DCP. The renter carries liability insurance naming the Friends as additional insured. Booking is by phone.

The Perot Theatre in Texarkana is a 1924 Saenger house owned by the city and managed by the Texarkana Symphony Orchestra, 1,542 seats, with a laser projector, a 22-by-40-foot silver screen, and a Blu-ray deck in its tech packet. Rentals lists film screenings by name and posts the rate sheet, application, sample contract, and technical rider. The rate is the greater of a flat day fee or a percentage of gross, in local for-profit, commercial, and nonprofit tiers, plus front-of-house labor and security by the hour. A ticketed screening in a room that size pays the higher number. Email is info@perottheatre.org. It screens Rocky Horror on October 30 this year, so the house knows how to run a film night.

The room that programs film.

The Historic Select Theater in Mineola is run by the Lake Country Playhouse, a nonprofit that took over in 1989 and bought the building in 2004, and it has shown movies since 1920: first-run every weekend, a Tuesday classic series, and four live plays a year. Its Century Cinema Independent Short Film Festival is September 26, entry is free if your film is selected, and the homepage says to email george@lakecountryplayhouse.com or message the theater’s page. No deadline, length limit, or FilmFreeway listing is posted. There is no rental page.

Festivals with a room.

The Tyler Film Festival, September 18 and 19 at Liberty Hall, takes shorts of twenty minutes or under on FilmFreeway and says it has a special fondness for local independent work. The 2026 deadlines have passed. REEL East Texas, November 11 to 14 in Kilgore, is the only festival in the region that takes features, along with shorts, pilots, web series, music videos, and screenplays; it screens at the Texan, the locally owned 4 Star Cinema, and the Texas Broadcast Museum, and gives a Best Texas Film award. Its 2026 deadlines closed in July. The Mainstreet Short Film Festival at the Esquire in Carthage, run by the city’s Main Street program, is the one window still ahead: submissions open October 1, 2026 on FilmFreeway, regular deadline January 27, 2027, event February 20, 2027. Films run three to 25 minutes, family-friendly, and finalists have to be in the room to win. The Nac Short Film Festival screens at the SFA student center theater in Nacogdoches, free to attend and free to enter for East Texas films, under fifteen minutes, with preference for films completed in East Texas and a rule that someone from the film must be present or it does not screen. The 2026 edition was February 28; the next date was not posted.

Call before you count on it.

4 Star Cinema in Kilgore was sold in September 2025 to a local investor group, per a Cinema Treasures note, and screens the REEL festival, but publishes no rental or submission path of its own. The Rio Theatre in Center is a locally run single screen with a phone line and a Facebook page and no website. Marshall Cinema 6 appears to be independently operated and has only a contact form. Memorial City Hall in Marshall is city-owned, 552 seats, with a published rate sheet that includes a projector and screen line and no film-screening language anywhere; the Texan in Athens is city-owned with published private-event rates and no film or projection stated. Both are borderline and both are a phone call. Nacogdoches has no commercial cinema until Icon Cinema’s planned reopening, which KTRE reported could come as early as May 2027.

Five festivals, four rate sheets, one Blu-ray deck after another. If your film was made in East Texas, Nac and Tyler say out loud that they prefer it, and REEL gives it an award category. That is more than most regions offer.

If your film is not finished yet, that is the part we do. For filmmakers explains how.