Slackery News Tidbits

Use this for general news items.

Slackery News Tidbits: November 18, 2013

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Here's the latest Austin and Texas film news.

  • Texas-shot We Gotta Get Out Of This Place (Mike's review) took home an audience award in the American Independents category at this year's AFI Fest, IndieWire reports. The drama, about three Texas teens who unintentionally become involved in an organized crime ring, also screened at Fantastic Fest 2013. The German drama Nothing Bad Can Happen, which has U.S. distribution through Drafthouse Films, took home the New Auteurs critics award.
  • UT lecturer Kat Candler's upcoming feature Hellion received $70,000 for post-production costs from the San Francisco Film Society, according to IndieWire. The indie drama, starring Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul and Juliette Lewis, stems from Candler's award-winning short film of the same name, about a seven-year-old who falls prey to his older brother's mischievous ways in a small Texas refinery town. Fellow Austinite Jonny Mars, who appeared in the SXSW 2012 short, is returning for the feature, along with Austin producer Kelly Williams. Other local connections include executive producers Jeff Nichols (Mud) and Sarah Green (The Tree of Life).
  • The Austin Film Society's retrospective of Czechoslovakian filmmaker Jan Nemec kicked off Friday and continues on Sunday, December 1 with 2005's previously unavailable Toyen at the Marchesa (6226 Middle Fiskville), according to The Austin Chronicle. The series runs through Dec. 6.

Slackery News Tidbits: November 11, 2013

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Here's the latest Austin film news.

  • Austin filmmaker Robert Rodriguez's El Rey Network began production in Austin last week on From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, a television adaptation of his 1996 cult film From Dusk Till Dawn. This is the first scripted original series to air on Rodriguez's new cable network, set to debut next month.
  • Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to Coherence, which had its world premiere at this year's Fantastic Fest, where it won the Next Wave Best Screenplay award, IndieWire reports. The thriller about a dinner party gone awry will continue on the festival run until next year's theatrical release. 
  • Speaking of Fantastic Fest, the genre film festival is going on tour beginning Friday to Alamo Drafthouse markets nationwide for three weekends this month to present audience favorites, like Cheap Thrills (Mike's review), The Congress (Mike's review) and the Elijah Wood-fronted Grand Piano (Jette's review), among others. 
  • In more festival news, the ATX Television Festival has announced its first wave of programming, including the first-ever Everwood cast reunion. The WB drama follows a widower and his two children as they adjust to life in a small Colorado town. Stars Gregory Smith, Treat Williams and Emily Van Camp, among others, will be in attendance. The festival's third season runs June 5-8, 2014.

Slackery News Tidbits: November 4, 2013

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Here's the latest Austin and Texas film news.

  • Austin filmmaker Russell O. Bush's Vultures of Tibet is nominated for a Best Short Award at this year's 29th Annual IDA Documentary Awards. The International Documentary Association will announce the winners on Dec. 6 in Los Angeles at the Directors Guild of America. Bush's documentary explores a Tibetan death ritual where bodies are offered to wild griffon vultures. IDA members can vote now for Best Short. In addition, University of Texas at Austin graduate student Elizabeth Chatelain's film My Sister Sarah, about the affects of meth addiction, is nominated for the David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award (Jordan's interview).
  • In more awards news, the Austin-shot short Black Metal by UT lecturer Kat Candler received the Heavy Metal Hysteria award at last week's Housecore Horror Film Festival, The Austin Chronicle reports. Black Metal, which screened at this year's Sundance Film Festival, is about the lead singer of a metal band (played by Austinite Jonny Mars) and how he deals with the aftermath of a murder committed by one of his teenage fans.
  • Filmmaker Jason Reitman (Labor Day) announced at last week's Austin Film Festival that he will start filming his next movie, Men, Women & Children, in Austin in January, Austin Movie Blog reports. The movie is expected to star Adam Sandler and traces the role the Internet has played in people's lives.

Slackery News Tidbits: October 28, 2013

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Here's the latest Austin film news.

  • Austin Film Festival announced this year's film awards, which included the inaugural Dark Matters Jury Award, won by writer-director Darren Paul Fisher for OXV: The Manual. First time writer/director Chris Lowell took home the Narrative Feature Jury Award for his movie Beside Still Waters, and director Christopher Englese won the documentary feature jury prize for Political Bodies.
  • AFF also announced its shorts jury awards. The AFF Young Filmmakers Program Grand Prize was awarded to Imogen Pohl, director of HB; writer/director Avram Dodson won the Narrative Student Short Jury Prize for Pistachio Milk; the Documentary Shorts Jury Award went to director Jenny van den Broeke for Blinde Liefde; Erica Harrison's A Cautionary Tale took the Animated Shorts award, and Fool's Day, from Cody Blue Snider (Dee Snider's son, interestingly) won the Narrative Shorts award.
  • Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater discusses Before Midnight (out on Blu-ray and DVD), a possible Dazed and Confused "spiritual sequel" and TV series, as well as his long-awaited film Boyhood with Parade. The film, which Linklater's been working on since 2002, chronicles the life of a child from age six to 18 and stars native Texan Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as the boy's fictional parents. 

Slackery News Tidbits: October 21, 2013

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Here's the latest Austin and Texas film news.

  • Get your questions ready: the SXSW Film team will be hosting a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) at 2 pm today. 
  • Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater will receive the Levantine Cinema Arts Award at this year's Houston Cinema Arts Festival, Culture Map Houston reports. The Nov. 6-10 event will include a screening of Linklater's 1993 Austin-shot film Dazed and Confused
  • Five Drafthouse Films titles, the distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse, landed on Netflix Instant last week: music documentary A Band Called Death, which screened at SXSW 2013; Filipino crime thriller Graceland, which screened at this year's Fantastic Fest; Korean drama Pieta; and Australian thriller Wake in Fright and comedy-drama Wrong, both of which screened at last year's Fantastic Fest.  
  • Austin filmmaker and former Austin Film Society staffer Bryan Poyser's feature-length debut, Dear Pillow (Don's review), is now available to watch on the subscription-based movie site Fandor as its "Featured Release this Week." The Independent Spirit Award-nominated drama follows 17-year-old Wes through a pseudo-fictional sexual odyssey. Dear Pillow was produced by Jacob Vaughan, whose latest film Bad Milo is currently available for online rental.

Slackery News Tidbits: October 14, 2013

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Here's the latest Austin film news.

  • Austin filmmaker Emily Hagins's fourth feature film, Grow Up, Tony Phillips won't be released on VOD and DVD until October 2014, according an update on the movie's Kickstarter campaign page. The independently produced comedy, starring AJ Bowen (A Horrible Way to Die) and Tony Vespe (Hagins's My Sucky Teen Romance) as the eponymous character, tells the story of a Halloween-loving teenager who refuses to grow up. It was shot in and around Central Texas and premiered at SXSW this year (Elizabeth's review, my interview). 
  • Former AFS staffer Bryan Poyser's (Elizabeth's interview) latest feature film The Bounceback (Don's review) -- which also premiered at SXSW -- won a best writing award at the 18th Annual Genart Film Festival last week, which celebrates emerging filmmakers in North America, IndieWire reports. Poyser co-wrote and directed the romantic comedy, starring Sara Paxton (The Innkeepers), about a group of friends trying to bounce back from heartache during a weekend in Austin.
  • The Austin Chronicle chronicled the filming of Butcher Boysoriginally titled Boneboys, to celebrate its DVD release last week. Writer/producer Kim Henkel, who co-wrote the 1974 horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, teamed up with two former Texas A&M University- Kingsville students, co-directors Duane Graves and Justin Meeks, on the low-budget horror comedy about a family of cannibals. The film, which was shot in Austin and Taylor, previously screened here at Austin Film Festival 2012.

Slackery News Tidbits: October 7, 2013

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Here's the latest Austin film news. 

  • FilmBuff has announced it will release Austin filmmaker Don Swaynos's flick Pictures of Superheroes (Debbie's review and Jette's interview), which screened at last year's Austin Film Festival, on Oct. 15 via iTunes, Amazon, Vudu and other online streaming outlets. To celebrate, the cast and crew are hosting a special screening at Violet Crown on Thursday, Oct. 17 at 8 pm, with a post-film Q&A. The quirky comedy follows Marie, who, after being dumped and fired on the same day, takes a housekeeping job with an overworked businessman and the messy roommate he's forgotten about.
  • Harry Ransom Center is planning a 2014 exhibition around the movie Gone With the Wind, but is asking for help to raise the necessary $50,000. The HRC houses the archives of the film's producer, David O. Selznick -- and several gowns from the film.
  • Austin-based documentarian Heather Courtney's Emmy-nominated film Where Soldiers Come From (Jette's review and Jordan's article), about the lives of small-town childhood friends who enlist in the U.S. National Guard after graduating high school, is now available for institutional streaming licenses through distributor New Day Digital.
  • The Hill Country Film Festival is now accepting short and feature-length film submissions for its 2014 festival, which takes place May 1-4 next year. The early-bird deadline is Nov. 15, but you've got potentially as late as March 14, 2014 (although fees are higher by then).

Slackery News Tidbits: September 30, 2013

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Here's the latest Austin film news (with a video at the end). 

  • Special effect makeup artist and actor Tom Savini (Dawn of the Dead) will be live and in the flesh tonight (Monday) at 7:30 pm in the Austin Film Society Screening Room for a Moviemaker Dialogue. Austin filmmaker Clay Liford (Gayby) will speak with Savini about his career on both sides of the camera -- Savini has had acting rolls in From Dusk Till Dawn and Machete Kills -- and as a director (the 90s remake of Night of the Living Dead).
  • Last year's SXSW events had a $218 million economic impact on the City of Austin, reports Silicon Hills. The two-week long SXSW conference last March was the largest ever, with more than 155,000 total conference and festival attendees (defined as any individual who attended at least one SXSW activity).
  • The distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse, Drafthouse Films, has acquired the North American rights to Fantastic Fest 2013 selection R100. The comedy-drama, which takes its name from the Japanese movie rating system, whose equivalent to NC-17 is R18, tells the story of an ordinary man who joins a mysterious club. VOD, digital and theatrical releases are planned for next year. 

Slackery News Tidbits: September 23, 2013

in

Here's the latest Austin and Texas film news. 

  • Polari (formerly aGLIFF) has just announced its 26th annual festival lineup, which includes Austinite Yen Tan's drama Pit Stop (Debbie's Sundance review), PJ Raval's documentary Before You Know It (Don's SXSW review) and Clay Liford's short Slash, which just played Fantastic Fest last night (Debbie's interview). The oldest film festival in Austin takes place Oct. 16-20. 
  • Acquisition news from Fantastic Fest: IFC Midnight acquired the North American rights to the scifi-horror flick Almost Human, according to IndieWire. The film, about a man's search for the killer behind a series of grisly murders, will screen again tomorrow at Alamo Lakeline. 
  • The Elijah Wood-fronted Grand Piano, which had its world premiere Friday at Fantastic Fest, has been picked up for U.S. distribution by Magnet for a planned 2014 release, the filmmakers announced. Eugenio Mira's thriller will screen again on Tuesday at Alamo Lakeline. Keep an eye out for Jette's review.
  • Austinite David Gordon Green's (Prince Avalanche) latest film, Manglehorn, will begin filming in Austin this fall, reports Deadline. The drama, starring Al Pacino and Holly Hunter, follows an eccentric man trying to come to terms with a past crime that lost him the love of his life.

Slackery News Tidbits: September 16, 2013

in

Here's the latest Austin and Texas film news.

  • Austin Film Festival has been awarded a $25,000 TexTreasures Grant to preserve five years of its audio and video collection, North Dallas Gazette reports. The collection will then be housed at Texas State University in San Marcos. The grant from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Among many other awards, the commission also approved a $49,500 grant to the Round Rock Library System for a "makerspace" collaboration to benefit middle-school students with STEM and art projects.
  • Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul is starring alongside Juliette Lewis in Austinite Kat Candler's Hellion, according to Deadline. The indie feature drama, currently in production around Central Texas, stemmed from Candler's award-winning short film of the same name, about a seven-year-old who falls prey to his older brother's mischievous ways in a small Texas refinery town. Fellow Austinite Jonny Mars, who appeared in the SXSW 2012 short, is returning for the feature, along with Austin producer Kelly Williams. Other local connections include executive producers Jeff Nichols (Mud) and Sarah Green (The Tree of Life). 
  • The Austin Chronicle reports that the Texas Book Festival (Oct. 26 and 27 at the State Capitol Building in Austin) has announced its 2013 lineup. Film-related connections include Austin filmmaker Owen Egerton (Everyone Says That at the End of the World), Lynda Obst (Sleepless In Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business), SXSW Film Producer and Senior Programmer Jarod Neece (Austin Breakfast Tacos: The Story of the Most Important Taco of the Day) and screenwriter/author Stephen Harrigan. 
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