Want to Host a Visiting Filmmaker for Fantastic Fest?

Could the next Marko Zaror be staying at your place in September?

One my favorite things about Austin's festivals, and Fantastic Fest in particular, is the camaraderie. There's a tremendous feeling of community, and it's common for out-of-towners to stay with locals, especially since most of their waking time will be spent around the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar.

Cut to last month when some friends of mine -- other Fantastic Fest veterans -- noticed that the Fantastic Fest website didn't include anything about housing. We found something about hotels, but nothing else. We talked about Butt-Numb-a-Thon and how one person in particular who has a guest room had a great time hosting an international guest for BNAT, and was thinking it would be fun to host someone else for Fantastic Fest.

That made me think about  how Alamo and Fantastic Fest staffers have often hosted visiting filmmakers on tight budgets -- one year a call went out looking for housing options for some shorts filmmakers from Colombia. So I passed on the suggestion to Jill, the Guest Manager for Fantastic Fest, and guess what? Now you can host a filmmaker yourself.

Fantastic Fest loves to have filmmakers in attendance, but emerging filmmakers and shorts filmmakers in particular usually work on a shoestring budget, and often can't afford the cost to travel and find accommodations on their own. And we're not just talking filmmakers from other states here; Fantastic Fest features films from around the globe. So here is your opportunity to host a future rival to Aronofsky or del Toro, even the next Marko Zaror -- the Chilean actor pictured above in the Kiltro shirt at Fantastic Fest 2009 -- and help make the 6th Fantastic Fest the best ever.

Read the Host a Filmmaker blog entry on the Fantastic Fest website for more details. I recommend letting Jill know if you have pets, smoke (or are smoke-free), how close you are to Alamo South Lamar, how much room you have in your home ... and anything else you think might be useful to help Jill match you with the filmmakers looking for a place to stay.

[Photo credit: "Mandrill Crew and Cast at Fantastic Fest 2009" by Debbie Cerda]