Slackery News Tidbits: November 25, 2013

Here's the latest Austin and Texas film news.

• IndieWire's "Sundance wishlist" includes Austin-based filmmaker Richard Linklater's long-awaited Boyhood, which chronicles the life of a child from age six to 18 and stars native Texan Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette; University of Texas lecturer Kat Candler's feature-length version of Hellion, about a seven-year-old who falls prey to his older brother's mischievous ways in a small Texas refinery town; Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter from Austinites David and Nathan Zellner; and Austin-based Hammer to Nail magazine editor and filmmaker Michael Tully's Ping Pong Summer, starring Susan Sarandon. We'll be keeping our fingers crossed that these movies really do get into Sundance 2014.
• MovieMaker named the Austin Film Festival as one of the top 25 coolest general film festivals, as voted on by their readers. Austin-based Fantastic Fest was also honored by readers as one of the top five coolest horror/sci-fi film festivals.
• The Central Texas-shot indie-comedy Cinema Six (Jette's dispatch), about the hijinks of three longtime small-town movie theater employees, is now available on cable VOD (check your local provider for availability), according to Devolver Digital.
• The Austin Film Critics Association announced its selection of seven finalists for this year's Austin Film Award: Before Midnight (Elizabeth's review), Before You Know It (Don's review), Mud (Debbie's review), Prince Avalanche (Caitlin's review), The Retrieval (Don's review), Somebody Up There Likes Me (Jette's review) and Zero Charisma (Jette's review). The finalists were selected by a committee of AFCA members from 28 eligible contenders (criteria included movies that were made in Austin or that have a credited directed and/or screenwriter whose primary residence was Austin during the time of filming) that were released theatrically or screened at an Austin film festival this year. Winners will be announced Dec. 17 as part of all of AFCA's 2013 film awards.
• And finally, in distribution news, the rights to sometimes-Austinite Joe Swanberg's indie-drama All The Light In The Sky, his follow-up to the SXSW 2013 screener Drinking Buddies, have been acquired by Factory 25, who will release the movie digitally on Dec. 3 via VOD, iTunes and Amazon, among other outlets, as well as theatrically in New York City on Dec. 20.