Slackery News Tidbits: April 21, 2014

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Here's the latest Austin and Texas film news.

  • Filmmaker Annie Silverstein has had her student short film Skunk accepted in the Cinefondation section of Cannes Film Festival. It is one of 16 films that will screen, out of 1,631 student movies submitted worldwide. She ran a successful crowdfunding campaign last year to finish Skunk, which was her master's thesis film at The University of Texas at Austin. The film stars local actress Heather Kafka.
  • Texas native Tommy Lee Jones's western drama The Homesman, about a duo who escort three insane women across states, will compete for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, according to CNN
  • The Austin Film Festival and Travis County Sheriff's Office invite area high-chool students to create a commercial or short movie to raise awareness of issues facing teenagers. Winning entries will be published to the event's YouTube channel and screened during AFF's Student Filmmaking Expo, among other prizes. Deadline to submit is Friday. 
  • In more AFF news, 2013 AFF Official Selection Favor, about a friendship that's tested when one man's fling is accidentally killed in a motel room, will be available On Demand and iTunes on Tuesday. 
  • AFF news continues: The Austin-shot sci-fi thriller The Faculty screens Wednesday at 7 pm at the Texas Spirit Theater (at the Texas State History Museum) as part of the festival's Made in Texas series. Austinite Robert Rodriguez directed and sometimes-Austinite Elijah Wood stars in this movie about a group of high-school students who begin to suspect their teachers are aliens.
  • UT RTF alum Dan Siegelstein will be shooting four follow-up sequels to his 2013 short People with Issues, which won the Best Comedy award at last year's Austin Comic-Con's Wizard World Film Festival, in Austin on May 13 to create a season of web series content. The movie and series focuses on three twentysomething artist friends in Austin. Siegelstein has created an Indiegogo campaign to raise the final $10,753 to begin production on the web series. The campaign ends on Wednesday.  
  • The Longhorn Denius Film Showcase will screen select UT RTF student work on Sunday from 6-8:30 pm at UT's Student Activity Center. Last year, three of the showcase movies went on to win regional Student Academy Awards, and Brian Schwarz's Ol'Daddy won the national award in the narrative category. Other award-winning students movies that will be showcased include Elizabeth Chatelain's My Sister Sarah (Jordan's profile) and John Spottswood Moore's Once Again.
  • Drafthouse Films Creative Director Evan Husney announced that he will be leaving the company after two years to pursue producing films full time, Austin Movie Blog reports. 
  • Speaking of aliens, the ATX Television Festival has announced it will host the 15th anniversary reunion for the hit WB series Roswell during the festival, which takes place June 5-8. 
  • Austinites Mallory Culbert's and Carlyn Hudson's "unromantic comedy," The Big Spoon, was chosen last week as an Indiewire Project of the DayStarring Alex Karpovsky (Girls), the movie is about the perils of relationships that last past their expiration date.
  • Fellow Austin-based filmmaker Chris Eska's (Elizabeth's interviewThe Retrieval (Don's review), which made its world premiere during last year's SXSW, will be released in Austin on May 2 with a one-week run at Regal Arbor. Tishuan Scott, who plays Nate in this historical Civil War drama about a boy who is sent north by his bounty hunter gang to retrieve a wanted man, received a Special Jury Recognition for Acting at SXSW 2013.