Finding the 'Austin' in AFF 2012 Features
By Elizabeth Stoddard on September 25, 2012 - 10:30am
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The full lineup for Austin Film Festival 2012 has now been released. Among the big-budget films, Dustin Hoffman's directiorial debut, indie movies and documentaries are flicks with ties to Austin (and/or Texas in general). Among the better-known movies, The Sessions has a slight local connection in one of its stars -- former (but not forgotten) Austinite John Hawkes.
Here are some of the feature-length films made in Austin or with Austin filmmakers. If we missed anything, please let us know. Also, if you're one of the filmmakers on this list, please drop us a line, because we'd love to cover your movie.
- Ann Richards' Texas, a documentary by Houstonians Jack Lofton and Keith Patterson, is among the Marquee Screenings at the fest. This one looks like a must-see for those of us interested in Texas politics and/or our former state governor (trailer below). [official site]
- It's a Disaster was among the first ten films of the AFF lineup announced. The apocalyptic comedy -- one of the Marquee Screenings -- follows four couples whose Sunday brunch turns into a dire situation. The film is directed by University of Texas alum Todd Berger.
- Pictures of Superheroes was also included in the early announcement. You can read more about this locally filmed indie comedy in my previous post. Don Swaynos's film will screen under the Comedy Vanguard series.
- Native Austinite Elizabeth Mims and Jason Tippet co-directed the award-winning documentary Only the Young. Showing as part of the Marquee Screenings, their film follows a small group of teen skaters in Southern California as they deal with ennui and new relationships. Or so I infer from the plot description on their Facebook page and the trailer below.
- Showing under the Dark Matters banner, horror comedy Boneboys was filmed in Austin and Taylor. Directors Duane Graves and Justin Meeks are past students at Texas A&M-Kingsville, and screenwriter/producer Kim Henkel (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) was one of their professors.
- Saturday Morning Massacre, also filmed in Austin, is a Scooby-Doo parody of sorts. Jette reviewed the film, directed by former Austinite Spencer Parsons, earlier this summer after its Los Angeles Film Festival premiere.
- In his documentary Rising from Ashes, Austinite T. C. Johnstone's follows the first team of cyclists hoping to represent Rwanda in the 2012 Olympics.
- Independent drama Satellite of Love was filmed in Austin and a vineyard in Central Texas, and features a cameo from Turk Pipkin! The soundtrack includes pleasant-sounding indie pop music, and Zachary Knighton wears a lot of V-neck shirts (although he's playing a character different from who he plays on Happy Endings). See Jette's review from June.
- Shot in Austin and Oaxaca, writer/director David Riker's The Girl stars Abbie Cornish (Bright Star, Sucker Punch) as a single mother in Austin who loses her job and becomes a coyote, smuggling Mexican immigrants into Texas.
- Austin stands in for the fictional Wynot, Texas in George Anson's Spring Eddy. Anson was the first film program director for AFF, from 1994-96. His directorial debut follows the criminal foibles of Eddy from Chicago.
one more!
We missed one -- the animated feature Flatland 2: Sphereland from local filmmaker Dano Johnson, in the Family Films category at AFF this year. The sequel to the 2007 movie Flatland includes voice talent not only from Kristen Bell, Danny Pudi and Kate Mulgrew but also locals such as John Merriman and Danu Uribe (who are also both in Pictures of Superheroes).