Local Indies

Filmed in Austin, An Ordinary Family highlights the difficulties for a family with a religious background when a member comes out of the closet. After years away from home Seth (Greg Wise) returns for a week with his partner William (Chad Anthony Miller) to meet the family. Each member of the family has a different reaction. For example, brother-in-law Chris (Steven Schaefer) at first finds the situation comical and slightly uncomfortable, but develops a strong bond with William.

The center of the story, however, is Seth's brother Thomas (Troy Schremmer), a Presbyterian minister. Thomas struggles to find peace in order to reconcile acceptance of Seth and William with his faith. It was his intolerance that drove Seth away, and they must come to terms with each other for Seth to consider returning home to rejoin the family permanently.

The 18th Austin Film Festival is here. To help celebrate all the locally connected movies at this year's fest, we've reached out to a number of filmmakers to find out about their Austin and Texas-tied films screening at the fest.

Strings is a a thriller co-directed by Austinite Ben Foster and written by co-director Mark Dennis (pictured above at Tulsa Film Festival with Ben on the left). The film is about a grieving man who opts for an experimental therapy to start a new life with unexpected consequences.  I haven't seen the movie yet, but Austinite Karl Anderson, who has a significant role in the film, was very impressive during the script reading of By Way of Helena at AFF last year, so I can't wait to see his peformance on screen.  In the meantime Ben Foster graciously took the time to answer some questions about Strings, AFF and Austin. 

Slackerwood:  Describe your film for us, in a quick and dirty paragraph.

Ben Foster:  Strings is about a musician that discovers his therapist is using patients to commit vigilante crimes. He gets involved with this underground crime ring and can never return to his old life. 

Just who is the girl in the picture and why is someone getting her autograph? It's Stella Otto, one of the stars of Sironia.

But first, let's start at the beginning. Today was a packed day, despite only making it to one panel. Had to decide between much needed sleep and a panel, and the sleep won out. But I did make it to one of the Pixar panels.

Kiel Murray and Mary Coleman talked about "Pixar's Story Development Process" and how the innovative animation studio approaches the development of stories and films. Unsurprisingly, no one at Pixar works in a vacuum; while they have directors on staff, every director has to come up with three separate and unique stories to pitch before the script process. Then an iterative approach is used that involves a "brain trust" feedback process as well as feedback from the entire staff of 1200 people. It was refreshing to hear that Pixar films don't get test screenings with kids (which would explain why they work so well for adults). They also use a similar development process for shorts, only anyone at Pixar can submit a story idea.

The 18th Austin Film Festival is almost here. To help celebrate all the locally connected movies at this year's fest, we've reached out to a number of filmmakers to find out about their Austin and Texas-tied films screening at the fest.

The world premiere of the stoner comedy Austin High will take place on Saturday, October 22 at 10:30 pm at the Rollins Theatre in the Long Center. The film screens a second time on Monday, October 24 at 9:30 pm at Rollins.

At fictional Ladybird High School, Principal Samuel Wilson's (Michael S. Wilson) clock is perpetually set to 4:20, that is, until a politician from an unnamed city to the north of Austin comes to town. The politician wants to build more condos, turn Barton Springs into a water park and strictly enforce federal marijuana laws.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

A small-time Texas marijuana dealer gets in over his head when the million dollars' worth of hashish his boss has given him suddenly goes missing in the family drama Dance with the One.

The October 12 Texas State University - San Marcos screening of Dance with the One was held in room 206 of the school's Department of Theatre and Dance. The Texas Independent Film Network, an Austin-based statewide coalition of film societies, universities and independent theaters, sponsored the event. The network tours a different Texas independent movie each month around the state.

"If you're at UT this sort of thing [independent film] is around you all over the place, but it's places like Waco, College Station and San Marcos [where] you're going to have to drive somewhere to go see it," said Tom Copeland, a lecturer in the Texas State Department of Theatre and Dance.

Mike Dolan, Dance with the One director, was in attendance at the Texas State premiere. Dolan, a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers program at The University of Texas at Austin, was chosen to direct the film through his previous work with the University of Texas Film Institute, a nonprofit educational film institute at UT.

Dance with the One is the first film produced by UTFI. The film premiered at SXSW 2010 -- read Debbie's review for more details about the movie itself.

The 18th Austin Film Festival is almost here. To help celebrate all the locally connected movies at this year's fest, we've reached out to a number of filmmakers to find out about their Austin and Texas-tied films screening at AFF, and to hear about what they're looking forward to doing during the festival.

Austin-based filmmaker Brandon Dickerson's feature film debut Sironia features music by Texas singer-songwriter Wes Cunningham, who also co-wrote the script with Dickerson and Thomas Ward. Dickerson, pictured above on the right with actress Amy Acker and Wes Cunningham, shares some very personal stories about how the story and the film began. Audiences may not recognize all the names of cast and crew, but may notice a lot of familiar faces onscreen. The cast includes Jeremy Sisto, Carrie Preston and Ryan Cartwright, not to mention Dallas-born actress Acker.

Slackerwood: Describe your film for us, in a quick and dirty paragraph.

Brandon Dickerson: I've had some folks describe Sironia as "Once meets Away We Go," which I'm cool with. Music plus love story. In simplest terms ... the film is inspired by the music of singer-songwriter Wes Cunningham.

The 18th Austin Film Festival is almost here. To help celebrate all the locally connected movies at this year's fest, we've reached out to a number of filmmakers to find out about their Austin and Texas-tied films screening at AFF, and to hear about what they're looking forward to doing during the festival.

A few years ago the (mostly) Austin-shot Chalk was the talk of Austin Film Festival. Now director Mike Akel is back in town with his latest film, An Ordinary Family. Akel is now based in Houston, but there are still some recognizable Texas locations in his feature, along with some familiar faces from Chalk.

Slackerwood: Describe your film for us, in a quick and dirty paragraph.

Mike Akel: An Ordinary Family is Modern Family meets Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

An Ordinary Family is a humorous drama about one family, two brothers and a really big problem. Thomas Biederman is blindsided when his estranged brother, Seth, shows up unannounced to the annual family vacation ... with his boyfriend.

Austin filmmaker Miguel Alvarez caught the attention of local audiences with his short films in 2010: the science-fiction themed Mnemosyne Rising, which premiered at SXSW, and the biographical Veterans at Austin Film Festival -- check out my AFF 2010 review of Veterans. This year, Alvarez contributed to a segment of Slacker 2011 -- read Elizabeth Stoddard's interview with Alvarez and producer and former AFF Film Program Director Kelly Williams here. Alvarez is now undertaking his first feature film with La Perdida (pictured above), a re-imagining of the traditional Mexican folktale of La Llorona combined with the Greek myth of Cassandra, but set in the middle of the 21st century. Described by Alvarez as a "lo-fi sci-fi drama," this movie will explore the universal themes of loss and redemption combined with time travel.

Alvarez is currently seeking funding for pre-production expenses of La Perdida through the crowdfunding site United States Artists here. Funds raised will provide Alvarez with a six-week research and writing sabbatical in Mexico City, where the story takes place. Alvarez's goal of $6,500 by Friday, November 4, will help get the project off the ground by covering pre-production expenses. You can learn more about the project in this pitch video.

Kelly Williams is also producing Pit Stop, which is seeking funding from the community. Find out more about this and other interesting and deserving projects in need of donors after the jump.

Texas State University-San Marcos has film and screenwriting classes. I know. I'm just as surprised as you are. Texas State may not be UT and the film and TV-related theatre classes and media studies minor may not be a full radio-television-film program, but with the arrival of former Texas Film Commission Director Tom Copeland in 2005, and recently, Austin Film Society Artist Services Director Bryan Poyser, college life is looking a little bit more film-y in the 78666.

The San Marcos premiere in September of Echotone, a documentary about Austin music culture, marked the burgeoning presence of the Texas Independent Film Network (TIFN) at Texas State University.

TIFN co-founder Ryan Long and Austin actor Chris Doubek attended the Sept. 28 screening of The Happy Poet at the Texas Music Theater in San Marcos during their statewide promotional tour for the movie. I had the opportunity to speak with Long, who's also the AFS programs and operations manager, and whom I had the pleasure of working with last summer as an AFS intern; and Doubek, who plays Curtis, the protagonist's moocher friend in The Happy Poet.

The Austin-shot micro-budget sleeper hit of SXSW 2010, The Happy Poet is the story of Bill (writer-director Paul Gordon), an out-of-work poet who uses the last of his money (and a loan) to buy an all-organic, mostly-vegetarian food stand. Read Jenn's review from SXSW for more details.

Sometimes Fantastic Fest feels less like a film festival and more like a big cocktail party where you know almost everyone there (which never happens at cocktail parties I attend) and oh yes, you can leave the party at any time and go watch some pretty good movies. If only we'd had martini glasses in the tent set up outside Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar, the illusion would have been complete.

I arrived at Alamo around 4 pm, too late for the first round of movies but not too late to socialize. So many people have been returning to this fest year after year after year (since 2005) that it really does start to feel like I know everyone. And that unfamiliar guy over there? Turns out he's that film blogger I've been chatting with via Twitter, here for his first Fantastic Fest. The only problem with this situation is that I have to be careful when writing so I don't sound too "inside baseball" and bore all of you who weren't there.

After more socializing than I normally do in three months, I slipped into a screening of Boys on the Run just to watch the short playing before it, Family Unit. Austin filmmaker Thomas Humphries, the man behind the Blackmagic Rollercoaster production company, directed the film. Blackmagic Rollercoaster has brought us some might strange Fantastic Fest bumpers (the short shorts that "advertise" the fest before each screening). Family Unit is about a family outing in Mayfield Park (I noticed a peacock) and it is, um, not what you would expect. On the other hand, I kind of did expect to be simultaneously bemused and slightly stunned, so I suppose you could call it predictable in that sense.