Local Indies

A potential pitfall of reviewing Incendiary: The Willingham Case is that rather than passing judgment on this engaging and enraging documentary, any critic with a desire for justice will instead pass judgment on the film's subject matter -- the infamous death penalty case of Cameron Todd Willingham.

The case began with the death of Willingham's three young daughters in a house fire in Corsicana, Texas in 1991. Willingham was home at the time of the fire. Despite his claims that he tried to save his daughters, he was charged with their murder by arson based on evidence suggesting someone had started the fire using a liquid accelerant.

Willingham was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1992, largely on the fire investigation evidence and the testimony of a jailhouse informant who said Willingham confessed to starting the fire. (The informant later recanted his testimony.) A psychiatrist also testified that Willingham, who had a minor criminal record, was an "extremely severe sociopath;" the psychiatrist later was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association for his questionable record.

Claustrophobia? Check. Dark rooms? Check. Things that go bump in the night? Check. A crazed gentleman in excruciating pain? Check! If you checked of any of those items, you definitely need to see the short film No Way Out, staring AJ Bowen, at this year's Fantastic Fest.

I recently had the opportunity to screen the movie and discuss it with local filmmakers Aaron Morgan and Eric Vespe. We chatted over tacos and queso at Austin's famous institution Torchy's Tacos.

Slackerwood: How did you two meet?

Aaron Morgan: I used to host touring short film festivals with Atom Films back in 2000. One of the places I did the short film fest was at the original Alamo on Colorado. I'd been a fan of Eric's writing on Aint it Cool for a while and I invited him out to watch the short films.

Austin Film Festival announced its feature film lineup on Tuesday, including 23 U.S. and world premieres, although the opening and closing-night movies are still unrevealed. This year's selections include movies that have been creating a lot of buzz on the film-fest circuit, such as We Need to Talk About Kevin (which is also playing Fantastic Fest, interestingly enough), The Descendants, Shame, Martha Marcy May Marlene and Coriolanus. There will even be a special 3D screening of the animated movie Puss in Boots.

However, we're most excited about the 15 Austin and Texas-connected movies scattered among the Marquee, Dark Matters, Texas Independents, Documentary Feature Competition and Narrative Feature Competition programs at AFF this year. You know Slackerwood is planning to cover as many of these as we can. If you're one of the filmmakers, please feel free to reach out to us.

aGLIFF 24 is over and strangely I’m not experiencing my normal post-fest-depression.  I usually feel a little low after a film festival, after immersing myself in films and all the socializing between films. I think it’s because I not only ran into several old friends I haven’t seen in a long time, but I made even more new ones hanging out at the Subaru Lounge, which was a great place to hang out and chat, especially the first few nights during our brief respite from triple-digit heat.

By sheer coincidence I saw several intense films and programs. aGLIFF gambled on starting the festival with The Lulu Sessions, which was surprisingly as entertaining as it was illuminating. Closing-night film Cancerpants was a very different documentary despite a very similar subject; a woman’s very personal journey after a cancer diagnosis. The packed house included director Nevie Owens and some of the local musicians included on the soundtrack, and it was truly a communal experience to see the movie with that particular crowd. Actually there were two closing-night films, but how could I not go to the one with so many local connections.

The final day of aGLIFF was much like the days before it: moderate crowds, the usual broad mix of films and the continued comforting presence of Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann welcoming us to the festival before each screening.

I started the day with the My Queer Movie Competition shorts, a just slightly eclectic collection of 13 films in every conceivable style. Kudos to the aGLIFF programmers for presenting a shorts program with something for every taste, from David Goldstein and Jeff Keith's beautifully romantic Now & Forever to Eliane Lima's dark and striking (if somewhat impenetrable) Leonora to one of my favorites, Austinite Zach Green's hilarious The Green Family Elbow, about a family enduring anti-gay bullying although no one in the family is gay.

Another favorite short is Christopher Peak's Looking, a poignant documentary about men who use Craigslist to meet other men for secret sexual encounters. The five men interviewed in Looking are amazingly candid about their activities, telling us that such liaisons are very common, and many of the participants are married or have girlfriends. I also enjoyed Kate Lefoe's Under Pressure, an Australian import about two high-school girls who reveal their secret sexual desires while hiding from a shooter at their school.

One of the Austin movies at SXSW this year was My Sucky Teen Romance, a comedy about real vampires who blend in perfectly at a science-fiction convention where everyone is in costume. Filmmaker Emily Hagins shot the movie while she was still in high school ... and this was her third feature film. Jenn interviewed Hagins before the movie premiered, then Don reviewed My Sucky Teen Romance after its premiere at the Paramount, calling it "campy, escapist fun."

My Sucky Teen Romance will return to Austin this week for its first local screening since SXSW. Austin Film Society will screen the movie on Wednesday at Alamo Drafthouse Village as part of its "Best of the Fests" series. And now I have even better news about the screening: Slackerwood contributor Rod Paddock will moderate the Q&A after the movie. Hagins will be there ... and I wouldn't be surprised if other cast members turned up. Rod is the perfect choice for a moderator, since he was an extra in the film.

Tickets are available online right now through Austin Film Society, with a discount for AFS members. I've embedded the trailer below. And I just remembered that Slackerwood contributor Mike Saulters also appears as an extra ... there he is in the trailer.

To Austin indie film fans, remaking the iconic Slacker may be the Austin equivalent of remaking Citizen Kane.

Producing a new version of what is arguably the most important and cult-worshiped film in Austin cinematic history is a herculean and potentially thankless task. The danger, of course, is that the end result might be at best a ho-hum imitation of the original film or at worst a widely scorned mess of a movie that pleases no one and embarrasses everyone attached to the project. ("What Were They Thinking?" the Austin Chronicle cover would read.) Like Citizen Kane, Slacker may be best left alone.

I am happy to report, then, that Slacker 2011 is neither a ho-hum imitation of Slacker nor a mess of a movie. It is an entertaining and generally well executed update of and tribute to Richard Linklater's classic. If you like Slacker, you'll probably like Slacker 2011.

Of course, given Austin's deep pool of filmmaking talent, Slacker 2011 may have been destined for success. A co-production of the Austin Film Society and the Alamo Drafthouse, Slacker 2011 was in the capable hands of no less than 24 teams of local directors and film crews, one for each scene in the original movie. The result is essentially two dozen seamlessly connected short films in diverse styles, each an interesting new take on the original scene.

As the largest genre festival in the U.S. featuring horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action, and "fantastic" movies, Fantastic Fest recently announced the 2011 short film lineup, with 50 shorts from across the world. The stellar programming showcases the best of hundreds of submissions from many countries, including Australia, Norway, Germany, Estonia, Canada, Spain and the U.K. This year's slate of short films also includes 15 from the United States, two of which were shot right here in Austin, Texas.

So far, Austin is represented at Fantastic Fest this year by No Way Out and Family Unit, films that feature Fantastic Fest veterans, including filmmakers, actors and writers. Find out after the jump why the Austin Fire Department paid an unexpected visit to one film's set. 

Three local movies that have been on the film-fest circuit are back in Austin next month for special screenings that we recommend you put on your calendar right now. Echotone and The Happy Poet are part of the Texas Independent Film Network series that brings Lone Star movies to various venues around the state, and My Sucky Teen Romance is one of Austin Film Society's monthly Best of the Fest selections.

More info on this trio of Austin indie films:

• Echotone: Friday, September 2 at 7:30 pm at the AFS Screening Room -- tickets here AND Sunday-Thursday, September 11-15 at 10 pm at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar -- tickets here
  I first saw Echotone at its 2010 Marfa Film Festival premiere, an oddly appropriate place to watch a documentary about how Austin music, politics and development fit ... or don't. It screened again during Austin Film Festival at Alamo Ritz (Sixth Street being another apt place to watch this movie), where Debbie reviewed the movie for Slackerwood and I reviewed for Cinematical. Echotone looks beautiful (as shown in the above photo) and sounds great and I can't recommend it enough.
• My Sucky Teen Romance: Wednesday, September 14 at 7 pm at Alamo Drafthouse Village -- tickets here
  Emily Hagins' third feature (all made before she graduated high school) is her best so far, a teen comedy set at a science-fiction convention where it's difficult to tell the real vampires from the conventioneers in costume. No, these vampires don't sparkle. Don Clinchy reviewed the movie at its SXSW 2011 premiere. You can also read Jenn's interview with Hagins pre-SXSW.

Welcome to "Ready, Set, Fund," a new feature we're publishing regularly about crowdfunding and related fundraising endeavors for Austin and Texas independent film projects. Contact us if you've got a film fundraising project going on you'd like us to know about.

The most educational film panel I've seen in recent years was a SXSW session moderated by Bryan Poyser of the Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund (TFPF) on "Low to No Budget Filmmaking." One filmmaker panelist remarked that although it might be possible to make a first film on favors, eventually money has to be spent on cast, crew, production, and more. The alleged $7000 budget of El Mariachi (as reported by Robert Rodriguez in Winter 1993 Filmmaker Magazine) is a filmmaking rarity, especially with the significant increase in production costs.

Funding is often the biggest challenge that local independent filmmakers have to face -- after they've used up their favors, or when their grants aren't enough to fund a project, what other funding options are available?

Thanks to the Internet and social media, crowdfunding of film projects has skyrocketed since 2008. Crowdfunding essentially uses online communities and crowdfunding-specific websites to pool money to support a specific project. Unlike the well-known microfinance website Kiva, contributions are not loans, but donations -- although contributors can receive rewards at certain giving levels. It's similar to public-broadcasting pledge drives that offer incentives to donors.