AFF Daily Schedule: Sunday

1973
International Showcase
Screening Info: 1pm October 22nd at Dobie
Regional Premiere. With an eye for cinema and ear for personal stories, Antonino Isordia lays bare the disappointments and tragedies felt by a generation of young Mexicans in his explosively kinetic 1973. By focusing on three case histories, each about someone born in 1973 who eventually spent time behind bars, Isordia delivers a startling tapestry of contempo Mexico City life. Pic superbly reps a brilliant new wave of Mexican non-fiction (including "Tropic of Cancer") and is in the midst of a vibrant fest run. - Robert Koehler, Variety [ info]
Thin
Special Presentations
Screening Info: 2pm October 22nd at Arbor
Regional Premiere. With unprecedented access and an unflinching eye, photographer Lauren Greenfield, in her directing debut, filmed over a six-month period at a residential facility for the treatment of eating disorders in South Florida. An experiential and emotional journey, the documentary focuses on four women struggling with anorexia and bulimia. Greenfield’s camera follows them to intimate one-on-one and group therapy sessions, emotionally wrought mealtimes, early morning weigh-ins, heated arguments with staff, and tense encounters with family members. As the film follows these individuals, it also explores the institution that is their home, investigating the culture of rehab and the process of treatment. Filmmaker Lauren Greenfield will host a Q&A and a book signing following the Saturday screening. [ info]
Shorts Program 1
Shorts Programs
Screening Info: 2:15pm October 22nd at Hideout
Short films screening in this program include: Excessive Force, Trevor's in Heaven, Gilbert, For the Love of Family, Moosecock, Positive Reinforcement, Fear is a Lot Like Love, The Blood Debt of Master Ken, Tunnel Vision, Jenny Clone, and Alone and Inhuman. [ info]
Animated Shorts

Screening Info: 2:30pm October 22nd at Stephen F. Austin
Our inaugural program composed exclusively of animated short films. Short films screening in this program include: Some Analog Lines, Unfair, She She She She's a Bombshell, Pinch, Ballyvaughan Story, Dragon, Ujbaz Izbeneki has Lost His Soul, Devil's Canyon, Temerario, and McLaren's Negatives. [ info]

Shorts Program - 9
Shorts Program
Screening Info: 3pm October 22nd at Dobie
Short films screening in this program include: Hotel Hopscotch, Film This!, Stringers, The Third Parent, The Sheriff of Gay Washington, Bystander, and A Taste of Nate. [ info]
The Cave of the Yellow Dog
Target Family Series
Screening Info: 4pm October 22nd at Paramount
Regional Premiere. The follow-up to the hugely successful, Academy Award nominated film The Story of the Weeping Camel, The Cave of the Yellow Dog is a thought provoking mix of documentary and drama that tells the story of the age-old bond between man and dog, a bond which experiences a new twist through the eternal cycle of reincarnation in Mongolia. IN the film, a Mongolian nomad family find themselves in disagreement when the oldest daughter, Nansal, finds a dog and brings it home. Believing the dog is responsible for attacking his sheep, her father refuses to allow her to keep it. When it’s time for the family to move on, Nansal must decide if she will defy her father and take her new friend with them. The Cave of the Yellow Dog was submitted as Mongolias contender for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and won the 2006 Deutscher Filmpreis award for Best Children's Picture. [info]
A Place to Dance
Austin Screens
Screening Info: 4:15pm October 22nd at Arbor
Regional Premiere. For 65 years people of a certain age in New Orleans have danced to the music of Pat Barberot. We meet these characters in May 2004 at his nightclub. Through them we learn a little bit more about what's truly precious in life. Very few talk about the job they once held or the size home in which they lived. Instead they talk about relationships and love. Then Hurricane Katrina hits. The people we've followed for 18 months are suddenly scattered across the Southeast. They lose homes, friends, and their dancehall. There's a deep sadness, but also grace and unexpected humor as they work to piece things back together. And of course, they find a way to dance again. The film is an extension of the 2004 AFF Audience Award winning film of the same name. [ info]
Shorts 7 - Screenwriters
Shorts Program
Screening Info: 4:15pm October 22nd at Hideout
Short films screening in this program include: Pitch Perfect, The Pitch (aka) Lebron James vs The Alien King, Writing All Wrong, and Pitch. [ info]
Beyond the Call
Special Presentations
Screening Info: 5pm October 22nd at Dobie
Regional Premiere. Made in the cinema verite style of the director's previous and Academy Award nominated film, Genghis Blues, Beyond the Call tells the story of three middle aged men whose idea of adventure is taking desperately needed food and medicine into some of the most dangerous yet beautiful places on Earth: the front lines of war. Ed Artis, Jim Laws and Walt Ratterman are former soldiers and self-styled Knights of Malta. In 1995, they formed Knightsbridge International, a unique humanitarian aid organization with the motto "High Adventure and Service to Humanity." Their specialty is going where death from landmines, bullets, or bombs is as frequent as death from hunger, disease, or the elements. They are a fusion of Mother Theresa and Indiana Jones. Their personal convictions and courage drive them to places like Afghanistan, Albania, Chechnya, Cambodia, Rwanda and the southern Philippines, often before other aid organizations arrive. The three are still on the ground when other aid organizations deem things too dangerous and pull out. Artis explains: "We're not there to change anybody's politics, we're not in the God business, and we pay our own way." [ info]
Urban Scarecrow
Narrative Feature Competition
Screening Info: 5pm October 22nd at Stephen F. Austin
Regional Premiere. Wesley Downs used to have a home. Since his mother's death six years ago, he and his father, Frank, a hopeless yet endearing failed stand-up comedian, have been living in a small, run-down motel amidst a landscape of empty parking lots, abandoned buildings, telephone poles, and broken signs. The two grow apart, Frank floating back and forth between delusion and reality, from temp jobs to comedy classes, while Wes becomes more distant, his heart and mind somewhere far away. [ info]
American Scary
TerrorVision
Screening Info: 7pm October 22nd at Alamo Lake Creek
Regional Premiere. American Scary is a look at the nation's tradition of horror hosting, from Zacherley to A. Ghastlee Ghoul. With interviews from major hosts from the 1950s to the present day, along with memories from celebrities and fans who were influenced by these hosts, you'll follow this American folk art form from its glamorous beginnings, through repeated waves of popularity, to its scrappy resurgence and survival in the age of cable access and the Internet. American Scary looks to remind people how much fun local TV could be - and maybe could be again. Featuring Joe Bob Briggs, Tim Conway, Neil Gaiman, Tom Savini and more! With horror host and Austinite Professor Anton Griffin and Frank Della Stritto from Cult Movies Press in attendance! [ info]
Open Window
Narrative Feature Competition
Screening Info: 7pm October 22nd at Texas Spirit Theatre
Regional Premiere. Izzy and Peter are a newly engaged and madly in love couple, who find their cozy world shattered by a random act of violence. It soon becomes clear that irrevocable losses have touched not only Izzy and Peter, but also their entire family circle. Long-hidden emotions rise to the surface as the trauma creates a complex test of their relationships. Through various turns of events, Open Window creates a rarely accomplished tone of pure drama. [ info]
The Treatment
Special Presentations
Screening Info: 7pm October 22nd at Arbor
Regional Premiere. Jake Singer is barely on speaking terms with his father, recently abandoned by his girlfriend, and heading for a life of compromise and mediocrity teaching at a prestigious New York prep school. Emotionally paralyzed, he embarks on a course of psychoanalysis with a maniacal Argentine-Catholic Freudian, Dr. Ernesto Morales, therapist from hell, a man who wields his sarcasm like a machete in the slash-and-burn process he calls interpretation. Morales' accent and tactics are worthy of the Spanish Inquisition, and Jake is just trying to keep him at a distance while he plans his escape. When he meets socialite widow Allegra Marshall and finds himself upwardly mobile in the Manhattan of serious money and glamour, as he bounces from the couch to Allegra's bed in the allegedly real world and back again, his whole life begins to take on the eerie, over-determined quality of an analytic session. [ info]
Shorts Program - 3

Screening Info: 7:15pm October 22nd at Hideout
Short films screening in this program include: The Trinity Test, A Season of Madness, When Elvis Came to Visit, Checkpoint, Wet Foot/Dry Foot, and King of London. [ info]
Documentary Feature Winner
Documentary Feature Competition
Screening Info: 7:20pm October 22nd at Dobie
The winner of the Documentary Feature Competition will screen in this slot. [ info]
Rescue Dawn
Marquee Screenings
Screening Info: 7:30pm October 22nd at Paramount
In 1997 Werner Herzog directed the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, the story of a German-born American Navy pilot who crash-landed in Laos during the Vietnam war. Imprisoned in a POW camp and tortured, Dieter Dengler masterminded an escape with the other inmates and survived both hunger and the elements for an extended period of time before his eventual and somewhat coincidental rescue by helicopters patrolling the area. Herzog returns to Dengler's story in an action drama starring Christian Bale in the role of Dengler supported by Steve Sahn and Jeremy Davies as fellow prisoners of war. [ info]
Colma: The Musical
Special Presentations
Screening Info: 9pm October 22nd at Arbor
Regional Premiere. Variety calls it, "a less pretentious rock musical than 'Hedwig,' with music just as good." Taking place in the suburban town of Colma, Colma: The Musical takes the music of H.P. Mendoza and weaves it into a fresh personal look into the ups and downs of early adulthood. Best pals Rodel, Billy, and Maribel find themselves in a state of limbo. Fresh out of high school, they are just beginning to explore a new world of working part-time mall jobs and crashing college parties. As newfound revelations and romances challenge their relationships with one another and their parents, the trio must assess what to hold onto and how to best follow their dreams. Colma: The Musical boasts 13 musical numbers featuring all original music by H.P. Mendoza. [ info]
Shorts Program - 2

Screening Info: 9:15pm October 22nd at Hideout
Short films screening in this program include: hy-phen, Like Old Times, Twenty-Minute Prophet, Kidney Thieves, Super Powers, Safety First, Holidays With Heather, and Nothing to Do With Amy. [ info]
Shorts - 6
Shorts Program
Screening Info: 9:15pm October 22nd at Texas Spirit Theatre
Short films screening in this program include: One Rat Short, Happiness, Momma's Boy, Death of a Revolution, Santa Baby, and Troll Concerto. [ info]
Historias del Desencanto
International Showcase
Screening Info: 9:20pm October 22nd at IMAX
Regional Premiere In a world devoured by an invisible force known as disenchantment, the stories of three characters intertwine. Diego tries to make a movie about the dreams of Ximena, an adolescent experiencing her sexual awakening, who is secretly in love with him. In order to help him with his bizarre project, Ximena leads Diego to Ainda, a conceptual artist with bat wings, with whom the naïve filmmaker falls madly in love. Ainda is attracted to the purity of the young people and seduces them both, which leads to a magical moment in the lives of all three. Soon the young people discover that their beloved harpy’s heart belongs to a being from beyond the grave. Then the idyllic relationship of the three characters begins to crumble, and they do everything in their power to prevent it as the dark force of disenchantment closes over the city. [ info] 6
Noriko's Dinner Table
TerrorVision
Screening Info: 9:20pm October 22nd at Dobie
Regional Premiere. Noriko's Dinner Table is Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono's semi-sequel to his 2001 cult hit Suicide Club. Leaving behind its predecessor's horror film structure for a more personal dramatic approach, Noriko shows the same world, connected by the events surrounding the suicide circle and the mysterious Haikyo.com, but from a more interior perspective -- and presents us with enigmas even more seductively intriguing. Shot through with subtle humor and cutting social satire, Noriko's Dinner Table is the work of an important emerging talent in international cinema, and a refreshing break from a cinema that is increasingly superficial, self-reflexive and almost completely removed from actual human life and experience. Eschewing pure escapism, Sion Sono has constructed an intricate puzzle box of a film whose purpose seems to be to call into question the structures within which we exist so that we may better see whether or not we are truly related to ourselves. [ info]
The Descendant
TerrorVision
Screening Info: 10pm October 22nd at Alamo Lake Creek
U.S. Premiere. A year after his mother passes away, James Duke contemplates doing the one thing she had always forbidden: contacting her parents. Yielding to temptation, the young man visits his grandparents and discovers that altough friendly, they are very nervous about his surprise visit. Staying on for a few days at their eerie, run-down and secluded farmhouse, he gradually uncovers the shameful chapter of family history that his mother never revealed. Carefully watched by menacing townspeople, James uncovers the clues to his disturbing past; old gramophone recording, altered photos, remains of uncertain origin, and a very unusual patchwork quilt made by tortured hands. Conspiracy and the heavy burden of truth confront James in his discovery of ghosts from the past. [ info]