Results tagged “austinfilmfestival”

Animal lovers, general do-gooders and anyone who likes to party for a good cause should plan to attend Thursday night’s Fur & Film Fete, a yearly event that raises funds for Emancipet.

Kids are endlessly creative and/or insane, and anyone who has hung out with a 10-year-old for more than a minute knows that the stories they craft are sometimes more bizarre than anything a seasoned wordsmith could ever come up with. The Austin Film Festival's Summer Film Camp allows budding filmmakers to express those words through moving pictures and specifically in this case, through moving clay. The video is only 5 minutes and 52 seconds long, and the four short films contained therein are totally worth a watch. Our favorite happens to be the incredibly wacky Sacred Cupcake, by no-doubt-future-auteurs Colin, Connor and Sam, although all of the participants are to be commended for their super cool work.

Anyone that’s ever driven around Texas knows one thing for sure -- it’s friggin’ HUGE. Seriously. We’ve been all over this damn state at one time or another, and we feel like we have a pretty good idea of the geography. But we’ve never seen any place like Virgil, Texas. Now’s your chance to see this incredibly interestingly oddball (and totally fictional) town in David Byrne’s musical feature film, True Stories. The Austin Film Festival screens this 1986 cult classic as part of their Made in Texas Film series. The film screens at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum’s Texas Spirit Theater tonight at 7:30.

Whether you’re a longtime Austinite with many years of “it was much cooler back in the day” to speak of, or you’ve just moved here to join the beardeoisie, you probably have some film school friends who love the Coen brothers. From the whip-smart pacing and whacked-out dialog of Raising Arizona to the intense emotion and sheer badass-ness of No Country for Old Men, these guys have become film legends.

What is it about summer camp movies that makes us so jealous our parents never sent us off for a few weeks of minimally-supervised, life-affirming fun? The films we’ve seen always seem to be filled with mischief, merriment and near-miracles – food fights hilariously erupt, unlikely friendships are forged and even the nerdiest of nerds manage to get kissed for the first time.

Just when you think perfectly blonde, perfectly nice, perfectly married Olive and Dax are about to get on your nerves with all their perfect perfectness, they start acting like normal, insecure people and begin to screw each other over.

Grocery stores are the great equalizer—pretty much every one in America frequents one, be they monolithic or modest. And after you have purchased your snacks and sundries, there is generally one question that remains: do you want to carry your wares home in paper or plastic? Granted, in Austin the swing is towards "neither" with our cloth bag revolution, but across the country you will find dutiful baggers, sackers, or whatever you choose to call them, packing up jars, cans and bread, hopefully with the later after the former. Sounds like the stuff of legend, right? You wouldn't think so, but in the Austin Film Festival documentary feature Paper or Plastic?, those disregarded courtesy clerks finally get their moment in the sun.

It is said that there is one being out there in this grand universe that is the perfect compliment to our person; a "twin flame" of sorts, and only when we meet shall our fires burn the brightest. Well, we think we have found our soul mate and its name is the 6th Annual Austin Film Festival Film & Food Party. We're serious. Basically, if we were reincarnated, we think we would come back as the AFF Film & Food Party, because this event brings together what really defines who we are at our core: people who live to eat delicious food, and people who love to watch flickering lights on cinema screens. Truly, that is pretty much all we need to survive. The great news is that since the AFF F&F Party, which will be shaking up the Driskill Hotel on Wednesday, October 15 at 7pm, is really just a concept as opposed to a physical being, you can also share in the joys of its bountiful awesomeness. We'll try to conceal our jealousy.

Whether you love Robert Altman or hate him, you can’t argue that he makes films like nobody else. It’s what made him a Hollywood institution and one of the most respected directors in the business. So when he calls you up and asks if you will send him some of your short stories, and then asks you to come write movies for him, you don’t say no. Because who would? That’s what happened to Anne Rapp, a native Texan and local script supervisor-turned-screenwriter; their first collaboration became Cookie’s Fortune, playing this weekend at The Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek. And that’s not all—you’ll get a chance to hear that story and much more from writer herself as the Austin Film Festival presents “Conversations in Film: Anne Rapp and Cookie’s Fortune.” For those up-and-coming filmmakers and screenwriters here in Austin (we know you’re out there, and there are a LOT of you), this is the kind of information you won’t want to miss out on.

The 15th Annual Austin Film Festival is only a few months away, but you've still got one more day to submit your film for consideration. The "very late postmark deadline" is tomorrow, Tuesday July 15th. So you've got 24 hours to submit your film for consideration in one of six categories (Narrative Feature, Narrative Short, Narrative Student Short, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short, and Animated Short). The easiest (and cheapest) way is to submit over the internet using the AFF's online submission form. But you can also mail in a printable form or submit through Withoutabox (though we have no idea how that works). Rules, regulations and other stuff can be found at the AFF Website. If you have questions, you can call 512-478-4795 for more info. [AFF Competition Website]

So, we know that there is some other film awards show going on this weekend that involves statues and crimson carpets and such, but how many nominees can claim Austin as their hometown? None that we can think of, which is what makes the Film Independent's Spirit Awards a bazillion times more interesting to us than the stodgy old Oscars!

On Thursday night, the Austin Film Festival will make you wonder what you would do for a joy ride as they bring us Blood Car, one of the surprise hits of the 2007 fest. Based in the not-so-distant future, where gas prices are over $30 a gallon and everyone's new mode of transportation involves Rollerblades, vegan kindergarten teacher Archie discovers that the future of the combustion engine may not lie in fields of green, but in pools of blood.

Walk Hard Moive PosterAfter a much deserved break, the folks at the Austin Film Festival will resume their fantastic year-round screening series next week, beginning on Wednesday with a sneak peek at Marc Forster's adaptation of The Kite Runner, which will see a limited release on December 14th after much controversy about the film's effect on its young stars. On Friday evening, AFF will also present an advance screening of the new Judd Apatow /...

Image from Austin Asian Film Fest official site Austin Asian Film FestivalThursday November 8 - Sunday November 11Various VenuesAll access badge $30, Individual films $7 / $5 students, AFS, TAA[info]Austin has a mind-blowing number of film festivals. In the last six weeks alone we've had the Austin Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, aGLIFF, The Austin Polish Film Festival and the Dismember the Alamo Zombie Film Fest--all of which were awesome. And beginning tomorrow, we'll have another...

We have a big crush on Tom Perrotta. We lurve the tales he crafts about ordinary people who end up in extraordinary predicaments because they just can't seem to bring themselves to say what they are thinking, even when knowing that it would save them a boat load of grief. We identify with being well-intentioned but sometimes ill-advised and from time to time believe that our own inner monologue is actually the narration for...

After a fantastic week of panels, parties and screenings, the Austin Film Festival will wrap up tonight with a screening of Sidney Lumet's highly anticipated Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Lumet (the man behind films like Running on Empty, Serpico, and one of our favorite movies ever, Dog Day Afternoon) directs an unbelievably great cast including Albert Finney, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei and Philip Seymour Hoffman in this caper-gone-wrong thriller. We haven't had the...

Like an accidental tourist, Terry George stumbled into filmmaking while penning a semi-autobiographical stage play with scribe partner Jim Sheridan about a failed prison break. Stemming from that first true-story collaboration, he has continued as both a writer and director, chronicling the triumph of the human spirit, and helping to catapult injustices in Ireland and the heinous genocide in Rwanda into our national consciousness with the critically acclaimed Hotel Rwanda. In conjunction with the regional...

Okay--so there are a bunch cool things happening at the Austin Film Festival tonight, and a we wanted to let you know about a few last-minute tidbits and screening changes. *The Rebel is now playing at 9:45pm at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, NOT at the 9:30 Paramount slot we'd previously told you about. *The awesome narrative feature and 2007 AFF "Film Jury Narrative Feature Winner" Shotgun Stories is now playing at 9:45pm...

There are so many great films playing at this year's Austin Film Festival that we've been having trouble keeping track of them all. And one that flew completely under our radar until this morning is a Vietnamese martial arts film called The Rebel, which is screening at the Paramount tonight. Billed as the "first ever Vietnamese martial arts film", The Rebel looks like all kinds of action-packed awesome. Secret agents? Check. Black magic? Check. Face-kicking...

There are some fantastic documentaries screening at this year's Austin Film Festival, so we thought we'd give you the heads-up on a few standouts that we've seen. Chasing the Dream | Dir. Angelo Mei Saturday, October 13th - 5:00pm, Dobie Theater Monday, October 15th - 7:15pm, Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek A high school surfing coach who claims to have "lost his compassion years ago" takes his team of freckled, hormonal surfer boys on a journey...

This is a big one for comedy fans: the folks at the Austin Film Festival have just announced Mr. Warmth, The Don Rickles Project as their third "TBA" film. John Landis' star-studded look at the infamous insult comic will screen at the Regal Arbor on Tuesday night, and will presumably be very funny. It'll also undoubtedly be jam-packed with what can only be described as "Rickles Schtick". There's very little early word on this film...

You know how sometimes when you are out on the town for a nice dinner, you wish that you could order tiny versions of everything on the menu because all of the dishes sound so delicious? Well, that's how we feel about film sometimes - if only we could watch 20 minutes of splatteriffic gore, 20 minutes of absurdist comedy and round it out with a piquant documentary or two, we would have all of...

Yeah, we hate the term "movers and shakers" too. But the fact is that, in any industry, the big leagues run on star power. Nowhere is this more true than in the movie biz; accordingly, we saved the last post in our Austin Film Festival Panel Preview for appearances by the talented, charismatic, and/or sensational people appearing at this year's fest. Regardless of whether you've heard these names before, they've been around the block and...

Director Jason Reitman and Screenwriter Diablo Cody have just been confirmed as panelists for this year's Austin Film Festival. Reitman and Cody are the team behind the brilliant new comedy Juno, which is screening as the festival's centerpiece film (and which we highly recommend seeing). Jason (son of legendary comedic director Ivan Reitman) is best known for his critically adored feature film debut Thank You For Smoking, but he has also directed several shorts, including...

We’ve created a selection of the most noteworthy panels happening at this week's Austin Film Festival, organized to appeal to particular festival-goers, from curious onlookers to those looking to break into the business. Yesterday we looked at panels for indie filmmakers. Today we highlight panels for aspiring and professional screenwriters. So get out your planners and take note! THURSDAY 10/11 Austin Pitch Prep They say you only get one chance to make a first impression,...

The folks at the Austin Film Festival have just announced this year's second "TBA" film, The Go-Getter, an indie drama starring Taylor Pucci and Zooey Deschanel. The Go-Getter is Director Martin Hynes' second feature film, but you may also remember his portrayal of a young George Lucas in the 1999 short film George Lucas in Love (which we hadn't seen until now, but is hilarious). The film will screen this Thursday night at the Bob...

Even people with kids like to watch movies. Partly because family films are just plain fun and educational, and partly because they, if only for a short period of time, provide a distraction from the endless, high-pitched squealing that children provide. But whatever the motivation, the Austin Film Festival's Family Film Series has a little something for everyone this year. Check out our rundown! Moondance Alexander | Dir. Michael Damian Saturday, October 13 12:30pm, Regal...

If you’re planning on attending the Austin Film Festival this weekend, you’re probably beside yourself with excitement about the lineup this year; with such highly-anticipated films such as Control, Juno and Reservation Road on the schedule, and appearances by legends like Oliver Stone and John Milius, who wouldn’t be? But one sorely-overlooked facet of the festival deserves special mention: the panels. Last year’s panel lineup featured some of the most powerful, if not famous, people...

Don't you just love surprises? We do! Especially ones that involve movies and John Cusack. So we were excited to hear that Grace Is Gone will screen as one of four top-secret "TBA" films at this year's Austin Film Festival. The film stars Cusack (in what some are already calling an Oscar-worthy performance) as a middle-class American father who can't figure out how to tell his two young daughters that their mother has been killed...

Harris Goldberg has spent most of his screenwriting career penning successful, high-concept comedies like Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and Without a Paddle. But these days, he's no longer interested in hammy, big-studio money machines. In 2006, after a long struggle with an unusual psychological disorder called "Depersonalization", Harris decided, for the first time in his life, to write something personal. His directorial debut, Numb is being billed as a "semi-autobiographical" film--but in reality it's a...