Slackery News Tidbits, November 4

Here's what's going on in Austin film news this week:

• Austin Film Festival announced its audience awards yesterday, and many are for movies with local connections (yay!). The narrative feature award went to Dig, from local filmmaker/instructor Stephen Belyeu. There was a tie for narrative short award -- locally shot (and very funny) Sleep Study, from John Merriman and Kerri Lendo; and Blind Date, directed by Joe Rosen. The narrative student short award went to A Lone Star State from Joseph Saito. Visit the AFF site for a full list of the awards.
• Are you suffering from film-fest withdrawal? The Austin Polish Film Festival starts tomorrow night and runs through next weekend. The fest shows features on the first weekend, then shorts and documentaries on the second weekend. The fest takes place at the Texas Spirit Theatre in the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum. If you need a fest rest, at least check out the finalists from the fest's student poster contest.
• Sunday, November 14 is going to be a big day for documentary filmmakers in Austin. First of all, at 2 pm, Spike Lee will screen and discuss parts of his latest documentary about New Orleans, If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise. Tickets are free, but you need to get them in advance from The University of Texas. I plan to be there, with a big box of tissues (I went through nearly a whole box during When the Levees Broke).
• But wait, there's more. At 4 pm that day, documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman will be at Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar to screen his 1967 film Titicut Follies, shot in a Massachusetts institution for the criminally insane. You can get tickets from the Alamo Drafthouse website. This is the first part of a double-feature of Wiseman's films ...
• And the second part of that double-feature is an Austin Film Society/Doc Tour screening of Wiseman's latest film, Boxing Gym, which was shot right here in Austin at Richard Lord's Gym. If you missed the AFF screening (probably to see Black Swan), you can catch this movie with Wiseman in attendance at 7 pm on Nov. 14. My review on Cinematical hasn't been published yet, but let me put it this way: I liked it so much I'm going to see it a second time at this screening. You can buy tickets through the AFS site.
• Joe O'Connell always seems to find the best set photos from local productions -- I loved all of the pictures from True Grit when it was shooting in Central Texas. Now he's got Bastrop set photos from Richard Linklater's current production, Bernie, starring Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine.
• Finally, Reel Women is collaborating with The University of Texas Radio-TV-Film department to host a panel on women in the film industry. Admission is free to the Tuesday, Nov. 16 event, at 6:30 pm in Studio 4D of the UT CMB building. Kat Candler is moderating the panel, which is still being finalized.