San Antonio and South Texas: every independent screen a filmmaker can book.

San Antonio has one independent art house and it is small. Everything else a filmmaker can actually book in the city is a civic or nonprofit hall with a projector: the Carver, the Guadalupe, URBAN-15, Texas Public Radio’s theater. South of the city the pattern repeats with fewer rooms. Laredo’s only non-chain screen is a film society’s microcinema. The Valley’s is an artist-run film center in Harlingen. Corpus Christi has no independent indoor room a filmmaker can book until the Ritz reopens, and the target for that is Christmas Day 2029.

This is the San Antonio and South 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 that program independent film.

Slab Cinema Arthouse at the Blue Star Arts Complex in Southtown is the city’s dedicated independent screen: independent, foreign, and classic film in a room of about a thousand square feet, with a Cinephile Sunday series and one-off independent screenings on the calendar. The venue rental page lists private film screenings among its uses and works by walkthrough and quote; the homepage publishes an hourly figure. Contact is arthouse@slabcinema.com. Slab is also the outdoor operator behind the city’s free park screenings, and its inflatable screen rental page publishes package rates by screen size, which is the route if you want to stage your own outdoor premiere. Slab’s FAQ is blunt that any public showing needs a license whether or not you charge. You hold the rights to your own film. Say so when you book.

Laredo Film Society runs the only non-chain screen in Laredo, a microcinema at 510 San Agustin, with Film Club Fridays programmed by community members, the Fronterror horror-shorts festival, and partnership screenings with TAMIU. The box office page has a Host Film Club option, which is an open invitation for an outside programmer to run a night, and Fronterror takes submissions on FilmFreeway. Contact is hello@laredofilm.org.

ENTRE Film Center in Harlingen is an artist-run community film center and regional archive, founded in 2021, with weekly Wednesday screenings, an animation night, and an annual RGV Music Video Showcase open call. The film center page invites inquiries about hosting an event at info@entrefilmcenter.org. The programming leans toward community-made, documentary, and experimental work. A conventional narrative feature is a pitch here, not a fit by default.

The rooms you can rent.

The Carver Community Cultural Center on Hackberry is city-owned and does the real four-walling in San Antonio. The 650-seat Jo Long Theatre and the 150-seat Little Carver rent in four-hour blocks, and the rentals page posts full rate sheets by nonprofit and for-profit tier, a per-event projector fee, hourly crew with a minimum, a per-ticket preservation fee, and an insurance requirement. Only an LCD projector is listed, no DCP. CineFestival has played here the last two years, which tells you the room works for film.

The Guadalupe Theater is the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s 350-seat house on South Brazos, with a full-size movie screen, and the rentals page publishes a rate range with nonprofit discounts and requires a certificate of insurance naming the center. Two things to know. The center’s own CineFestival, the country’s longest-running Latino film festival, takes submissions through FilmFreeway and says it prioritizes films closely tied to Texas and San Antonio; the 2026 edition ran 22 locally made shorts in its Vistas de San Antonio section, per the San Antonio Report. And that festival has been held at the Carver, not here, in both 2025 and 2026. No page states the theater’s current operating condition. Call before you plan around the room.

URBAN-15 on South Presa is a nonprofit arts studio with a ten-by-eighteen-foot screen, an HD projector, a Blu-ray player, and seating for about 150. Facility rental lists film screenings by name, at events@urban15.org. It also has a three-camera TriCaster system and a green screen on site, so a screening can be recorded or streamed in the same rental. Its Josiah Media Festival is a real youth path, for filmmakers 21 and under.

The Malú and Carlos Alvarez Theater at Texas Public Radio programs a summer Cinema Tuesdays series and has been a San Antonio Film Festival venue. Venue rentals go through rentals@tpr.org, and the page warns that TPR’s own events take precedence. Ask for dates outside the summer series.

The Texas Theatre in Seguin is a nonprofit-run historic house whose rental page publishes flat four- and eight-hour rates for the theater and lobby. It never says it has a projector. Ask first; bring your own if the answer is no.

The Raye Theater in Hondo is a family-run single screen, first-run, with a named owner and a phone number on the site, and a special events page whose text would not load. Whether a private party can screen your own film is not stated. It is a call.

Pitch, don’t rent.

The McNay Art Museum runs a summer film series in its 300-seat Leeper Auditorium and one-off screenings with panels, and its rentals pages are written for weddings and corporate events. A screening is a pitch to the museum’s public programs staff through the main line, not a booking. The Tobin Center screens free outdoor films on Will’s Plaza and hosted the San Antonio Film Festival in 2025; its venue rental page sends public, ticketed events to the vice president of programming and private ones to the events team. A ticketed premiere there is a programming conversation.

Drive-in.

Stars & Stripes Drive-In in New Braunfels is family-owned, three screens, open year-round, the twin of the Lubbock lot in the Panhandle edition, and its events page offers single-screen rental for private movie screenings separately from full-venue rental. A small premiere does not require buying out the lot. No rates or formats published.

Festivals with a room.

The Seguin Film and Arts Festival plays the Palace, the downtown house that programs Mexican Golden Age classics alongside first-run. Festival submissions are on FilmFreeway; the 2026 deadline is September 6, and the festival is October 24. The Palace itself publishes no rental page.

The South Texas International Film Festival in Edinburg is run by the city, September 10 to 12 this year, with a 48-Hour Film Race for Valley filmmakers, a Texas young filmmaker award, and a long submission window from November to May on FilmFreeway. The Rockport Film Festival, October 30 to November 1, run by the Rockport Center for the Arts, has a Texas Love category for regional subject matter; 2026 submissions closed August 31, so the next window is for 2027. The Corpus Christi 7 Day Film Project screens its competition films at the Harbor Playhouse; the 2026 screening and awards are September 6. CineSol in Brownsville has run for more than thirty years; its 2026 dates and venue were not posted when checked.

Call before you count on it.

Santikos is the city’s dominant exhibitor, San Antonio-headquartered, and owned for the benefit of local charity through the San Antonio Area Foundation. By its own count it runs 27 theaters in eight states. It offers private screenings. It is not independent by any definition this list uses, and it is named here because you will be asked about it. City Base Cinema, a twelve-screen house on Southeast Military Drive, is listed as independent on Cinema Treasures and its site returned errors; ownership and any rental path are unconfirmed. Cine El Rey in McAllen, reportedly owner-run and reportedly screening independent film, has a site that would not load and a 2026 calendar of concerts. The family circuits, the Arcadia in Floresville, Henson in Uvalde and Pleasanton, Rio in Alice, Beeville, and Kerrville, and Movies Inc. in Aransas Pass and Calallen, are locally run first-run houses with no published rental path. They are call-and-ask venues, and this list says that rather than pretending a booking page exists.

Mission Marquee Plaza screens free films on the original 1948 Mission Drive-In screen from May through November, run by the city’s World Heritage Office, with no submission path published.

The four-wall in San Antonio is the Carver. The art house is Slab. The festival is CineFestival. South of Loop 1604 the theaters are festivals, and the festivals are the theaters.

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