Author Archives: Brady Dyer

  1. Meet the 2021 AFS Grant for Feature Films Recipients

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    2021 AFS Grant for Features recipients:
    1: Jerod Couch, Starling Thomas, Fatima Hye, Nicole Chi Amén
    2: Heather Courtney, Andrés Torres, Paloma Hernández, Renée Zhan
    3: Kelsey Hodge, Jazmin Diaz, Lizette Barrera, Iliana Sosa, Chelsea Hernandez, and Sharon Arteaga

    Last week, AFS announced the recipients of the 2021 AFS Grant for Feature Films. Ten projects by fourteen director applicants were selected for awards: five narrative features, four documentaries, and one animated feature. As with each group of grantees, this year’s roster is one you’ll want to keep any eye on as they develop and refine their feature films. Read on below to find out more about the filmmakers and their projects.

    An essential part of our filmmaker support program, the AFS Grant provides vital resources to Texas independent filmmakers, creating life-changing opportunities for artists from diverse backgrounds that are traditionally underrepresented in the film industry and who are working outside of large coastal centers. Through the Grant and other programs, AFS is focused on making it possible for emerging filmmakers to build a career right here in Texas, ensuring that they are able to tell their unique stories and reflect the incredible diversity of this region.

    GUIÁN

    Directed by Nicole Chi Amén

    An MFA Film Production candidate at UT Austin with a Fulbright Fellowship, Nicole Chi Amén is a director and producer from Costa Rica based in Austin. Her first short documentary GAMING: OH, IT’S A GIRL was selected in the Oscar-Qualifying film festival Short Shorts & Asia (2021) in the Vertical Theatre competition and awarded Best Editing at the Vertical Movie (2020) in Italy. Amén is the recipient of the 2021 New Texas Voices grant, a special section of the AFS Grant program that awards $10,000 to a first-time filmmaker of color making a feature-length film. This year’s grant will help her complete her new documentary GUIÁN, an intimate film that follows the journey of a Costa Rican-Chinese granddaughter trying to connect with her deceased grandma by searching for the home she abandoned in China when she emigrated to Latin America.

    CRYPTIC TRIPTYCH

    Directed by Fatima Hye

    Fatima Hye is a Bangladeshi-American Muslim woman who grew up in Houston, Texas. She received her BA and MA from the University of Houston, majoring in Philosophy, minoring in Psychology and Media Production. A lecturer and filmmaker, Hye has directed several shorts and a featurette, ANIMALIUM. Her 2020 feature ABORTIFACENT was recently picked up for distribution by Summer Hill Entertainment and her experimental short COUNT THE WAYS will premiere at the Lost River Film Festival this month. With support from this year’s AFS Grant, Hye will complete her new feature-length narrative project, CRYPTIC TRIPTYCH, which she describes as “an art horror anthology.”

    RANCHO

    Directed by Andrés Torres

    Andrés Torres is a filmmaker and writer from Colombia, based in Texas. As a filmmaker and storyteller, he is interested in creating non-traditional films through immersive community-based processes and non-professional actors, to explore themes of identity, representation and memory. His first feature film LA FORTALEZA world premiered in 2019 as a New Talent Award nominee at the Sheffield Doc/Fest. In 2020, the film premiered theatrically in Colombia where it was ranked in the Top20 films of the year according to Rolling Stone Colombia. The 2021 AFS Grant will help Torres complete his second narrative feature, RANCHO, which follows a former teenage actor returning home from the Army encounters the vestiges of his family’s rancho and tries to cope with the knowledge that his best friend and his parents were deported while he was away.

    BLACK BUTTERFLIES

    Directed by Starling Thomas and Jarod Couch

    Starling Thomas is a producer, director and an award-winning screenwriter based in Dallas, whose work shines a light on the ills that Black Americans face in society. Her most recent short film HARVEST won best screenplay at Circle City Film Festival 2018 and also screened at the San Francisco Black Film Festival 2020, Las Vegas Black Film Festival 2021, and Best of Shorts Film Festival 2020, among others. She is a writer on the second season of the Emmy-nominated show #WASHED. Co-created, written, produced, and directed by fellow Dallas filmmaker Jarod Couch, WASHED# has earned top accolades such as Best of Fest: Audience Choice winner at the Hip Hop Film Festival and Best Comedy nominee at the Indie Series Awards. Together, Thomas and Couch are the directing team behind the 2021 AFS Grant recipient BLACK BUTTERFLIES, a new documentary focusing on the injustices of the for-profit prison industry. Thomas, a formerly incarcerated woman of color herself, calls on her own experience to expose the pervasive systematic oppression of the criminal justice system, particularly how it manipulates Black women.

    PASTICHE

    Directed by Paloma Hernández

    Paloma Hernández is a Mexican filmmaker, editor and visual storyteller based in Allen, Texas. She is a DACA recipient who received her Bachelor of Arts in TV & Film Production from The University of North Texas where she discovered her passion for post-production and has been working as a video editor ever since. Hernández is the recipient of an AFS Grant for her new narrative feature PASTICHE, centered on a struggling art student inadvertently who takes part in an art forgery scheme and stumbles into a world of corruption that tests her identity, moral boundaries, and her true talents.


    SHÉ

    Directed by Renée Zhan

    A past AFS Grant recipient, Renée Zhan is a prolific director who has directed dozens of short films over the past few years. Her films have screened and won awards at festivals internationally including Locarno, Tiff, SXSW, and the Jury Prize for Animated Short at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival (for her breakout RENEEPOPTOSIS) as well as been nominated for the Student BAFTA and Annie Awards. In her work, Zhan is primarily interested in exploring issues of the body, nature, and sexuality—all things beautiful, ugly, and squishy. With support from this year’s AFS Grant, Zhan will develop her new animated feature SHÉ, about Fei Li, the best violinist the Lost Maples High School orchestra has seen in 50 years. With a solid circle of friends, good grades, and a secret white boyfriend, everything is going great for Li—until one day, a new girl, Mary Jung, transfers into her high school.

    SMILE

    Directed by Kelsey Hodge

    A recent graduate from Southern Methodist University with a B.F.A. in Film & Media Arts and recipient of SMU’s Outstanding Creative Achievement in Screenwriting Award, Kelsey Hodge aims to create and share stories about strong and diverse characters to provide representation for people whose stories aren’t being told. She has directed many short films, served as director of photography for many more, and has production experience on local independent film and professional television sets (Netflix’s Umbrella Academy.) As a Black filmmaker, Hodge continues to work towards a more diverse film industry through the stories told and the cast and crew involved. She received a 2021 AFS Grant for her new feature narrative film, SMILE, a drama that follows Jules during the summer after returning home from the lowest point in her life: a failed suicide attempt.

    WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND (LO QUE DEJAMOS ATRÁS)

    Directed by Iliana Sosa

    Named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2020, Iliana Sosa is a documentary and narrative fiction filmmaker and a past AFS Grant recipient, based in Austin. Sosa’s first narrative fiction feature, DETAINED IN THE DESERT, premiered at the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival. Her documentary short AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE, co-directed with fellow AFS Grant recipient Chelsea Hernandez, won a Jury Award for Best Texas Short at SWSW 2018. She is the recipient of a 2021 AFS Grant for her first feature documentary, WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND (LO QUE DEJAMOS ATRÁS). The film centers on Sosa’s grandfather, Julian, who is told that he can no longer travel to the U.S. to visit family. As a result, he begins building a house in rural Mexico that will help keep the family together once he’s gone.

    UNTITLED 19th NEWS FILM

    Directed by Chelsea Hernandez and Heather Courtney

    Chelsea Hernandez and Heather Courtney are the co-directors behind this new documentary feature about a fearless group of journalists who seek to upend the white male status quo by launching an all-women and non-binary news start-up. Both established documentary filmmakers with award-winning projects, UNTITLED 19th NEWS FILM is their first documentary project together.

    Named as one of Texas Monthly’s 10 Filmmakers on the Rise, Chelsea Hernandez is a Mexican-American filmmaker based in Austin. She has worked for ten years in the documentary television and film industry, most recently on THAT ANIMAL RESCUE SHOW executive produced for CBS All Access by Richard Linklater. She made her feature directorial debut in 2019 with the award-winning documentary BUILDING THE AMERICAN DREAM, recipient of a 2018 AFS Grant. Heather Courtney is an award-winning filmmaker currently based in Los Angeles. Her 2011 film WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM won an Emmy, an Independent Spirit Award, and a SXSW Jury Award. Her other critically acclaimed films include the Ford-funded feature documentary on DACA students, THE UNAFRAID, LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE, and LOS TRABAJADORES/THE WORKERS, winner of an IDA Award and a SXSW Audience Award.

    UNTITLED TEXAS LATINA PROJECT

    Directed by Jazmin Diaz, Lizette Barrera, Sharon Arteaga, Iliana Sosa, and Chelsea Hernandez

    2021 AFS Grant recipient UNTITLED TEXAS LATINA PROJECT is a new narrative feature film exploring Latina/x identity in Texas through the lens of five Latina directors living and working in the Lone Star state. All five directors are award-winning filmmakers and past AFS Grant recipients and include Iliana Sosa and Chelsea Hernandez, with:

    Jazmin Diaz is a Mexican American filmmaker from Fort Worth and is the writer and director of the short film CARNE SECA, which premiered at SXSW 2015 and received awards from the Directors Guild of America and the HollyShorts screenwriting contest.

    Based in Dallas/Fort Worth, Lizette Barrera’s films have played at festivals and shown on networks worldwide, including her short film MOSCA (HBO) and her short documentary film MR. PASTOR JONES. (ESPN). She was awarded The Filmmaker to Watch Award at the Women Texas Film Festival and is the recipient of an AFS Grant for her short film CHICLE, which premiered at SXSW 2019.

    Sharon Arteaga is a first-generation Mexican American filmmaker from Corpus Christi. Arteaga has won many short film competitions, including being selected as a 2019 Tribeca Chanel Through Her Lens finalist for her short screenplay IN TOW and she is a recipient of an AFS Grant for short film PLANE PRETEND, winner of numerous awards including the Jury and Audience Award for Best Made in Texas Film at Cine Las Americas International Film Festival and the Premio Mesquite Award at CineFestival.

  2. RAGING FIRE – “Throwback to Classic Hong King Cinema” – Opens August 20 at the AFS Cinema

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    For everyone who has ever enjoyed the classic era of ’80s and ’90s Hong Kong Action, the new film RAGING FIRE is going to feel like an absolute blast from the past. It’s the last film directed by Benny Chan, and it stars the classic good guy/bad guy tandem of Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tse. The story centers on Bong (Yen), a highly respected cop with a long history of success on dangerous cases, whose past soon comes back to haunt him when his former protégé (Tse) seeks revenge against all those who have wronged him.

    RAGING FIRE is both a throwback to the golden age of Tai Seng VHS tapes with ear-blisteringly overloaded mono Cantonese soundtracks and an example of what the old school has to teach us today. Don’t believe us though—read on to see what the critics have to say.

    Currently the No. 1 film in China, RAGING FIRE blazes onto the big screen at the AFS Cinema this Friday. Purchase tickets.

    REVIEWS

    “An explosive action film like they used to make, with creative car chases on Hong Kong’s iconic Nathan Road, wild shoot-outs and intense hand-to-hand combat. Aided by the star magnetism of Yen and Tse and back in his element on the colorful streets of Hong Kong, Chan goes out with both guns blazing.” – G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle

    “Raging Fire is an accomplished visual feat with detailed fight choreography and strong physical performances. But it’s definitely for those more swayed by guns than gags, and by action than character.” –Anna Smith, Deadline

    “Rest In Peace, Benny Chan. Your final film might be your best overall work. Raging Fire is everything you would expect it to be. Raging Fire is straight fire. Raging Fire puts most Hollywood action movies to shame. Rarely do you watch a movie and get everything you expected from it. [It] is the action movie of the year.” – Todd Gaines,  Bulletproof Action

    “Raging Fire has enough incendiary shoot-outs, nail-biting car chases and brutal hand-to-hand combat to satisfy even the pickiest of action movie aficionados.” – Edmund Lee, South China Morning Post

    “In a world where so many big-budget action movies are either sanitized or stylized to the point of abstraction, Raging Fire reminds us that a little bit of real-world chaos can still go a long way. If you can sit through the occasional sermon about the role of police in modern society, you’ll find yourself in the lap of true action greatness.” – Matthew Monagle, Austin Chronicle

  3. Interview: Hear From Three AFS Grant-Supported Filmmakers About Their SXSW 2021 Premieres

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    SXSW is back! After last year’s cancellation, the 2021 festival returns as an all-digital experience, taking place March 16-20. We are excited to be a part and share that six AFS-supported filmmakers are making their world premieres at SXSW: Haley Anderson’s SUMMER ANIMALS, Keith Maitland’s DEAR MR. BRODY, Mei Makino’s INBETWEEN GIRL, Channing Godfrey Peoples’ DORETHA’S BLUES, Tamara Saviano’s WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT, and Renee Zhan’s O BLACK HOLE!

    Ahead of the festival, AFS talked with filmmakers Keith Maitland, Mei Makino, and Tamara Saviano about their new projects (all of which were supported by the AFS Grant). We will also be hosting online Q&As with AFS-supported filmmakers during SXSW on our website. As well, join us for a special AFS@SXSW ‘21 Virtual Mixer on March 18, 8–10pm. The event is free and you can register here.

    For more info on this year’s online festival, visit SXSW 2021.

    Keith Maitland, DEAR MR. BRODY
    Narrative Documentary

    Tell us a little about your film.
    DEAR MR. BRODY is a psychedelic look into the heart and the bank account of the hippie millionaire who promised the world peace for the price of a postage stamp. It’s about our wants, desires and needs, and ultimately finding what matters most.

    What was it about this particular story that made you want to feature it as the subject of a documentary?
    Michael Brody invited people to write him letters outlining their needs and he’d send them money—that was his plan, anyway. The Brody story had never been told. Behind that story were hundreds of thousands of letters that had never been opened. There was just too much opportunity for discovery, for uncovering an untold past and exploring the humanity of then and now, to pass this one up.

    The past year has been full of challenges and delays—how does it feel to finally be premiering DEAR MR. BRODY at SXSW 2021?
    When Tribeca was cancelled, and the summer festivals, and then even Telluride, we were unsure if anyone would ever see our film… we were in limbo, like so much of the world—on pause. To get to share the film here in Austin with SXSW is a full-circle kind of moment.

    As the recipient of an AFS Grant, how has that been helpful in your production of the film?
    I can’t say enough about how much I appreciate AFS, the literal spine of our filmmaking community. The support that AFS has provided throughout the years has helped take the edge off of a dangerous and unpredictable business. I’ve met collaborators, mentors and proteges through AFS programming.

    How can we keep up with your film?
    You can keep up with us on Twitter & Instagram: @dearmrbrody @keithmaitland

    Mei Makino, INBETWEEN GIRL
    Narrative Feature

    Tell us a little about your film.
    On its surface INBETWEEN GIRL is about a teenage girl crushing on the hot guy on her soccer team, but beneath that it’s about a young woman figuring out her identity and place in the world.

    What was the inspiration behind INBETWEEN GIRL?
    I’ve always been a fan of coming-of-age films, and I wanted to write one that was a little messier and closer to real life. I was also interested in exploring the psyche of a mixed-race teen dealing with unrelenting hormones.

    Can you share anything about your experience of making the film?
    I learned so much! This really was a second film school for me. It was a blast getting to chat with and learn from all of the different departments. There was so much talent and knowledge on set, and it was a joy to witness.

    As the recipient of an AFS Grant, how has that been helpful in your production of INBETWEEN GIRL?
    It was incredibly helpful in getting us started in post-production! We received the grant right after we finished production, and it gave us a huge feeling of ease and relief. It also gave us some street cred—when you’re backed by AFS, people start to pay attention.

    How can we keep up with your film?
    You can keep up on our website www.inbetweengirlfilm.com.
    We are also on social media:
    Instagram: @inbetweengirlfilm
    Twitter: @inbtwgirlfilm
    Facebook: Inbetween Girl Film

    Tamara Saviano, WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT
    Narrative Documentary

    Tell us a little about your film.
    WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT is the true story of Guy Clark, the dean of Texas songwriters, who struggles to write poetic, yet indelible songs while balancing a complicated marriage with wife Susanna, and a deep friendship with singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, on whom Susanna forged a passionate dependence.

    You first wrote a book about Guy Clark with the same title, WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF GUY CLARK—did you set out to also make a documentary and what was the process like turning the book into a film?
    NO! I did not set out to make a film at all. While I was working on the book, another filmmaker approached Guy and wanted to make a documentary. Guy told me the only way he would cooperate on a film is if I made it, because we had already spent years together on the book. So, he put the idea in my head and also made me feel like I should rise to the challenge.

    What is it about Guy Clark and his music that makes him so enduring?
    I think Guy is one of the greatest American songwriters who ever lived. His songs are like literature. They could have been short stories. And the Texas connection makes those stories especially rich.

    As the recipient of an AFS Grant, how has that been helpful in your production of the film?
    The AFS Grant really helped us out of a jam after SXSW 2020 was cancelled. We had many expenses that were not recoupable leading up to our cancelled world premiere. The AFS Grant helped enormously.

    How can we keep up with your film?
    Withoutgettingkilledorcaught.com is the best way. That is the platform where people can buy tickets for the virtual screenings in March and April. At the end of May, the film will be available On Demand at our website.  Also, if people sign up for our newsletter, we will send them a rare, mid-1960s recording of Guy singing “Step Inside My House,” which is the first song he wrote and he never recorded it for an album.

    We have an active Facebook group with more than 11,000 members: https://www.facebook.com/groups/withoutgettingkilledorcaught

    The Guy Clark Facebook page:     https://www.facebook.com/GuyClarkMusic

    The film Facebook page:
    https://www.facebook.com/guyclarkfilm

    We are on Instagram: @guyclarkfilm

  4. BACURAU – Watch this Cannes Award-Winning Film Today

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    Watch a live-streamed Q&A with the filmmaker and cast of BACURAU on Wed, April 1, at 7 PM. WATCH HERE >> 

    The experience of watching uncommon films in the dark on a big screen, with friends and strangers alike, is central to our identity and culture. After a few days’ closure, we already deeply miss the connection we feel every day at the AFS Cinema as audiences share their passion for the stories and visions on our screens.

    Our doors are shut, and the cinema experience is temporarily unavailable. We want to keep Austin a center of great film culture for years to come, and with the support and dedication of this incredible community of film lovers, we know that this vision is possible.

    For now, we are happy to announce that, through a new partnership with Kino Lorber, AFS will offer some of our anticipated programming during our period of closure via their virtual cinema.  Proceeds from the virtual ticket purchases will help sustain our programming and support our efforts to reopen the AFS Cinema.

    Our first virtual screening will be BACURAU, previously scheduled to open at the AFS Cinema in early April. Co-directed by one of our favorite filmmakers, Kleber Mendonça Filho (AQUARIUS and NEIGHBORING SOUNDS), the film draws from the cinematic legacy of exploitation and siege films to make a provocative, ingenious and gloriously entertaining parable about the current state of global inequality. As an added bonus for Texas viewers, two of the film’s co-stars are products of the Austin film community, actors Chris Doubek (LOVERS OF HATE, COMPUTER CHESS) and Jonny Mars (THE HAPPY POET, SATURDAY MORNING MASSACRE). The film features a number of our other cult obsessions: Udo Kier, the great Sonia Braga (who previously starred in Mendonça Filho’s AQUARIUS) and the brilliant Karine Teles, who emerged on the global arthouse scene with THE SECOND MOTHER.

    We’d love to hear your thoughts on the film. We’ll start a thread over at AFS Viewfinders on Facebook, where viewers can share their ideas and reactions to the movie.

    ABOUT BACURAU

    Set a few years from now… Bacurau, a small village in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants (among them Sônia Braga) notice that their village has literally vanished from online maps and a UFO-shaped drone is seen flying overhead. There are forces that want to expel them from their homes, and soon, in a genre-bending twist, a band of armed mercenaries led by Udo Kier arrive in town picking off the inhabitants one by one. A fierce confrontation takes place when the townspeople turn the tables on the villainous outsiders, banding together by any means necessary to protect and maintain their remote community. The mercenaries just may have met their match in the fed-up, resourceful denizens of little Bacurau.

    REVIEWS

    “Critic’s Pick! “A heart-thumping political allegory that tips its hat to masters like John Carpenter.”
    – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

    “[A] boldly inventive political fantasy… offers a thrillingly imaginative playbook for resistance.”
    – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

    “A gloriously demented (and lightly psychedelic) Western.”
    – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

    “A genre-busting entertainment that is at once a portrait of a community, a horror thriller and a timely piece of political filmmaking. Bacurau is one of those movies like Parasite… where you’re never quite sure which way it’s heading.”– John Powers, NPR

  5. Read More Kael: Five of Her Most Notable Reviews

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    Those who lived during Pauline Kael’s time remember her as a brash and sharp-tongued critic for The New Yorker whose distinctly personal voice was acutely observational and highly provocative.

    In anticipation of our Doc Nights series screening of WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL on Wednesday, February 12 at the AFS Cinema, we have compiled five career-defining reviews from Kael that made her a tour de force in the American film criticism that might have missed the younger reader or a delightful refresher for those who witnessed her writing (including a bonus 1963 KPFA broadcast of Kael in all her glory shared to us by AFS Lead Programmer Lars Nilsen):

    BONNIE AND CLYDE (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1967/10/21/bonnie-and-clyde)
    In her BONNIE AND CLYDE essay, Pauline Kael forecasted the sea change that would take place in American film and displayed an acute understanding of the new American moviegoer that forever cemented her name in the echelons of great American critics.

    LAST TANGO IN PARIS
    (    https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/834-last-tango-in-paris)
    Pauline Kael was in peak form, and fully plugged in to the cultural zeitgeist, when she articulated the sensational experience of the 1975 New York Film Festival premiere of LAST TANGO IN PARIS.

    NASHVILLE
    (    https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/nashville)
    “The funniest epic vision of America ever to reach the screen.” Robert Altman’s NASHVILLE had such an endearing impact on Pauline Kael that she hailed it as a new chapter in the Great American Epic.

    THE SOUND OF MUSIC
    (    https://lwlies.com/articles/joan-didion-pauline-kael-the-sound-of-music/)
    One of Kael’s most notorious and polarizing reviews was for the 1965 classic SOUND OF MUSIC. The legend goes that her scathing critique, in which she called the film “the single most repressive influence on artistic freedom in movies,” got her fired from McCall magazine. Simultaneously, the review was instrumental in the creation of Pauline Kael’s mythological status, as explored in this Little White Lies article by Justine Smith.

    WEST SIDE STORY
    (    https://themillions.com/2011/10/when-film-mattered-pauline-kaels-the-age-of-movies.html)
    Another highlight from the ruthless side of Kael’s writing is her merciless critique of yet another beloved classic, WEST SIDE STORY.

    BONUS: REPLYING TO LISTENERS BROADCAST
    (    https://youtu.be/sRhs-jKei3g)
    AFS Lead Programmer Lars Nilsen has this to say about Pauline Kael’s Replying to Listeners broadcast, “All of us who replay an argument in our heads afterwards, thinking, “I should have said that!” will appreciate the precision and sickness of the burn she administers here.” Listen to an excerpt.

  6. Q&A with “Sidney Poitier: The Measure of a Man” Guest Programmer. Series Begins Feb 6 at AFS Cinema.

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    For February’s Essential Cinema program, AFS presents Sidney Poitier: The Measure of a Man, a showcase of some of the most memorable performances by actor, director, activist, and cultural force Sidney Poitier. The series will begin with THE DEFIANT ONES on Thursday, February 6 at 7PM at the AFS Cinema. The full line-up and tickets can be found here.

    Five films starring Poitier will be featured throughout the month, including his breakout role in THE DEFIANT ONES, career-defining turns in GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER? and IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, a jazz-steeped portrait in PARIS BLUES, and his directorial debut effort BUCK & THE PREACHER.

    We will be joined at select screenings by guest programmer Mark D. Cunningham, associate professor at Austin Community College, for discussions about Poitier and his work. Ahead of the series start, we spoke with Dr. Cunningham about the films he has curated for the series, and about the legendary Poitier himself. Here’s what he had to say:

    HOW DID YOU DECIDE WHICH OF SIDNEY POITIER’S FILMS TO INCLUDE IN THIS SERIES?

    In choosing the films for the series, I thought it would be interesting to include a blend of his more iconic roles with a couple of his lesser known ones. Certainly, we think of Poitier standing firm and forcefully saying, “They call me MR. TIBBS!” However, I thought it also important to show more humorous and romantic sides of the man. Not to mention, I thought it important to showcase his work behind the camera as a director, something I think the general public either might not know or don’t always remember about him.

    ASIDE FROM BEING AN ACTOR OF IMMENSE TALENT, POITIER IS ALSO A MAN OF SEVERAL HISTORIC FIRSTS AND RECORD ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN FILM. IN YOUR OPINION, WHICH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT AND WHY?

    Not to be cliché, but I would point to his win of the Best Actor Academy Award in 1964 for LILLIES OF THE FIELD. I can only imagine, at that time, what that must have meant to a community of people not always on the receiving end when celebrating talent in Hollywood. If only for that moment, it had to have been a source of pride and certainly kicked open another door that had previously been closed.

    IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT PRODUCED ONE OF POITIER’S MOST-WIDELY KNOWN CHARACTERS, VIRGIL TIBBS, WHOM HE WOULD REPRISE IN TWO SEQUELS. WHAT MAKES TIBBS SUCH AN ENDURING FIGURE IN AMERICAN DRAMA, AND ONE OF POITIER’S MOST POPULAR PERFORMANCES?

    Tibbs is everything we think Sidney Poitier to be, in some ways. He is this stately presence, but also sharp, intelligent, fearless, and tough. The scene from this movie that always stands out is when he returns the slap given to him by the plantation owner. All of what I described prior, to me, is embodied in that scene.

    VERY POPULAR WHEN RELEASED, 1967’s GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER? WAS ALSO ONE OF THE MOST GROUNDBREAKING FILMS OF THE ERA FOR THE COMPLEX THEMES IT EXPLORED AND CONTINUES TO RESONATE. HOW IS THE FILM REFLECTIVE OF ITS OWN TIME, AND ALSO OF TODAY? CAN YOU ELABORATE SPECIFICALLY ON WHAT POITIER BROUGHT TO THE ROLE OF JOHN PRENTICE AND THE FILM?

    This is one of the more problematic films in the Poitier oeuvre, in my opinion. Certainly, I can see, in 1967, why this was seen as progressive. Here is one of the few films to explore interracial marriage. True, Poitier had been down this road before in A PATCH OF BLUE (1965), but this marriage was happening in this film! It is well meaning in its attempt to address the concerns of racism during the Civil Rights Movement. However, looking at it today, it is largely sanitized and really does not complicate the issue at all. Further, the relationship is still “safely done,” aware of the boundaries it is attempting to challenge. Poitier is asexual, almost too good to be true and it just, overall, rings false. It does not resonate now—and maybe not for many then either—because the film behaves almost as if there is no real struggle for racial equality happening outside the walls in which the characters function. Still, coming out the same year as IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, we are able to see Poitier’s range significantly. We see him in DINNER, as the handsome romantic lead, doling out affection and tame kisses instead of slaps and racially charged exchanges.

    PARIS BLUES, PERHAPS BEST KNOWN FOR ITS SOUNDTRACK, IS ONE OF POITIER’S LESSER-KNOWN FILMS. WHY DID YOU FEEL IMPORTANT TO INCLUDE IT IN THE SERIES?

    Poitier and Paul Newman acting together in the same film is recommendation enough. However, I think this film proves more influential in that we get to see Poitier in a situation where he not being, in some respects, the Jackie Robinson of Hollywood, finding ways to infiltrate or get along in a white world or relating with white women romantically. In this movie, the object of his affection is the late, great Diahann Carroll and this is not something we see very much of in the earlier parts of Poitier’s career, especially not during the peak of his popularity in the 1960s. It is also made even more interesting when you consider that Poitier and Carroll were having a love affair of their own at the time (the particulars of which challenge the image of perfection often associated with Poitier).

  7. Emerging Texas Filmmakers and Seasoned Mentors Gather for AFS’s 2019 Artist Intensive

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    This past October, AFS hosted our Artist Intensive Workshop, an annual weekend of work, focus, and mentorship for emerging narrative feature filmmakers. Participants include writer-directors who have been invited by AFS to work with a team of peers and mentors to further refine their current narrative feature film projects.

    This year, the lineup looked a little different than in years past, as we featured two projects in development and two at rough cut stages: Maria Lorena Padilla – MARTINEZ (development); Ryan Darbonne and Carina Hinojosa – WE REAL COOL (development); Morrisa Maltz – THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY (post-production); and Channing Godfrey Peoples – MISS JUNETEENTH (post-production).

    The creative advisors and producing mentors who worked with and guided the filmmakers throughout the weekend included directors Jeremy Saulnier (BLUE RUIN, GREEN ROOM) and Michael Almereyda (HAMLET, MARJORIE PRIME), producers Toby Halbrooks (A GHOST STORY, OLD MAN & THE GUN) and Caroline Kaplan (BOYS DON’T CRY, SORRY TO BOTHER YOU), editor Sandra Adair (SHEPARD AND DARK, BOYHOOD) and AFS Artistic Director Richard Linklater (DAZED AND CONFUSED, BEFORE SUNRISE, BOYHOOD).

    The multi-day workshop, which includes screenplay readings, works-in-progress screenings, and rehearsals with guest actors, has been instrumental in providing artists with creative feedback, resources, and momentum for their projects.

    “The AFS Artist Intensive was an amazing experience for myself and everyone on my team. When you’ve been working nonstop—for years—on a small project, I can’t stress enough how important it is be able to get feedback and have the opportunity to discuss what you’ve been doing,” says Morrisa Maltz, director of THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY. “The workshop helped us shape where we are going with the film, and also was a great chance for us to talk about what we’ve been working on for so many years with people we respect and who’s opinions we value. Our team also really needed this block of time together to get on the same page. An experience like this gives artists the courage to continue and make what we’ve been working on feel valued.”

    It is this particular of mix of close collaboration and shared experience with fellow filmmakers and mentors that resonates so deeply with those invited to participate.

    “The Artist Intensive is an unforgettable experience,” says Maria Lorena Padilla, director of MARTINEZ. “The high-level mentors are totally approachable and I think is due to the fact that we are all sharing the same space, and I think we are lacking this kind of “retreat” experience, which is so important for the life of an artist. The fact that we shared a cabin, we shared our meals, makes this lab different, and even if we were there just for a few days, it felt like a month. It is really intensive and I am very thankful for that.

     

    Fellow participant and director of WE REAL COOL, Ryan Darbonne adds, “Filmmaking is such a taxing endeavor that it’s easy to want to give up but the AFS intensive gave us some much-needed inspiration to keep pushing forward and get our film made.”

    Past Artist Intensive alumni include Annie Silverstein’s BULL (Deauville winner and Cannes Un Certain Regard competition), Augustine Frizzell’s NEVER GOIN’ BACK (Sundance, Independent Spirit Award-nominated) and Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund’s BARRACUDA (SXSW).

     

    The Artist Intensive Workshop is just one way that AFS underscores its mission by supporting filmmakers towards career leaps. AFS also provides production grants to Texas filmmakers, travel grants for filmmakers to attend their film premieres at festivals around the globe, Work-in-Progress screenings, and more. Keep up to date on the future of these projects and other AFS filmmaker program alumni by signing up for our filmmaker-focused newsletter.

  8. Nov 25 Proclaimed ‘Austin Film Culture Day’ – Celebrates Pompidou Retrospective Honoring Richard Linklater

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    (© Centre Pompidou, photos by Hervé Véronèse)

    Austin Mayor Steve Adler and City Council have proclaimed that November 25 (today!) is now officially Austin Film Culture Day. The proclamation celebrates a new exhibition and career retrospective honoring Richard Linklater at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and with it, international recognition for Austin film and the entire film community.

    On view from November 25 – January 6, Richard Linklater: Filming Time as Material will feature his complete filmography presented alongside original photographs, posters, documents, and videos, including a special short film commissioned for the retrospective, all dealing with time—a central theme of his work. With this exhibition, Linklater joins the esteemed ranks of some of history’s greatest filmmakers, including Chantal Akerman, Brian De Palma, Jean-Luc Godard, Martin Scorsese, Abbas Kiarostami, Werner Herzog, and others previously honored by Pompidou retrospectives.

     

    In advance of the opening, the Centre Pompidou sat down with Linklater to talk about his work and process, and making films in Austin, Texas:

    Centre Pompidou: How did you get into movie-making?

    Richard Linklater: While I grew up loving films, I didn’t think of it as something I could do until I was in my early 20’s. Up until then, I considered myself an aspiring novelist, then an aspiring playwright, then I discovered movies and realized it was my medium—I had films in my head, not novels or plays, and then and there dedicated my life to cinema.

    In your movies, you ponder the duration of action, the zeitgeist, the passing of time. Is time at the core of your work?

    I’ve always loved the unique relation the cinematic art form has with time. I feel it’s so fundamental—if a film is a canvas, time is the paint, which of course can express itself in so many different ways.

    How did you come to make 3 films with the same characters and actors, the Before Trilogy with Ethan Hawke and July Delpy—every 9 years—thus spanning over 18 years? How did you get the idea for BOYHOOD, one of the craziest ideas in the history of cinema, a fiction movie you took 12 years to shoot, to portray a child growing into an adult?

    The Before Trilogy is fairly accidental, we just fell into it, realizing each time that those two characters were at a new phase of life and we had something to express about it. BOYHOOD was very different in its origin. I wanted to make a very personal film about childhood but couldn’t find one little window into a particular story. What I was wanting to depict was craving a much bigger canvas and there’s this inherent limitation with what you can represent with young actors. You can’t just tell the 9-year old, “okay, now you’re going to be playing like you’re 13” and using different actors only works if there are plenty of years in between their ages, and even then, it’s often problematic. So, I had a problem I was trying to solve. Just as I was giving up on it as a film, and thinking maybe this will best be expressed in literary form rather than cinematic, as my hands touched the keyboard to start writing that novel, the big idea hit me and there was the film, everyone slowing growing up and aging over the years in the one film. It would require 12 years to make, but I knew it would work the way I wanted.

    You have sometimes worked in Hollywood and very often with stars, while remaining independent. You set up your own business, Detour Filmproduction, and also the vibrant Austin Film Society, which started out as a little movie club and which now has a cinema and studios, and distributes grants. How did you manage that?

    I’ve consciously chosen to keep the industry at a distance from my creative center, both geographically and spiritually. You get too close and it might affect your thought-process, decision-making, priorities, etc. I just want to tell the stories I’m passionate about, with no bigger plan or strategy, one film after another, with no compromise. I’ve been lucky to have industry backing at times, and also happy to be able to jump around to whatever lower budget and situation I might find myself in regarding a particular project I want to do. I’ve never seen myself at a certain level. Austin has been a wonderful place to work from, a very modern and progressive community but still in the Texas of my story-telling core. It feels now that our film community and myself have grown up together.

    You present a complete retrospective as well as, for the first time, an exhibition on your work at the Centre Pompidou. What does it mean to you?

    It’s certainly an honor, and a challenge of sorts. I look forward to having all the films and materials so close to one another, maybe just to see if it coheres and makes any sense.

     

  9. Revisiting Austin’s First Film Society with Cinema 40 Founder Gregg Barrios

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    November’s Essential Cinema series spotlights Cinema 40—Austin’s first film society. The program starts Nov. 7 with Films from the Cinema 40 Archive, with Cinema 40 founder Gregg Barrios in attendance. Details and tickets here >>

    Foundational for Austin’s contemporary film scene is a little-known 1960s campus film society: Cinema 40. Born of the mid-‘60s student counter-cultural movement, their tireless efforts helped create the University of Texas’s film department, brought avant-garde films and luminaries like Jean-Luc Godard and Jonas Mekas to Austin, started an experimental filmmaking collective and archive, and published a quarterly that featured original writing by Susan Sontag, Ernest Callenbach, and others.

    Here in his own words, Cinema 40 founder Gregg Barrios shares the story of how this influential group got started:

    I was and remain a die-hard film buff and critic. Movies were my life as a young Latino growing up in 1950s Texas. My small town could have been a template for THE LAST PICTURE SHOW.

    My father moonlighted as a movie projectionist at local theaters including the Tejas-Aztec drive-in. My favorite experience—my brother and I sitting in lawn chairs atop the twin drive-projectionist booth on a sultry summer night. We would view Spanish language films on one screen and English language Hollywood films on the other.

    I came to the University of Texas Austin campus in the summer of 1965 after my service in the military. The Austin scene offered little innovation, instead traditional works in music, museums, and theater. However, my curiosity was piqued when I heard about film history in one of my classes and then in magazines (Film Culture, Film Quarterly, etc.)

    Student film clubs or societies were far and few in the mid-1960s. The few that existed were found in large universities such as UCLA, UM-Ann Arbor, and NYU.

    I was in the elite Plan 2 so I benefited from the best teachers. A few referred to films as secondary sources. UT had no film appreciation classes—nary a Film-Making 101—although its RTF department would later bring film luminaries versed in cinema history.

    The more I read about film, the more I searched out reviews of classic films, foreign language films, and new American work. It was only after I actually saw a film with subtitles that I was riveted by the experience (ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS was one and Fellini’s LA DOLCE VITA, another). I was not alone. A new appreciation was looming as a new criticism emerged. Experimental films and hand-held documentaries were all the vogue, ushering out the old perception of movies as mere entertainment.

    As the savant Marshall McLuhan issued the battle cry: “The medium is the message” and “The medium is the mess age,” the counterculture was born. And yes, we had gained an appreciation of our homemade student films.

    In NYC, the midnight movie like a Humphrey Bogart Festival became a staple, a must-do for college hipsters. “Had Bogie influenced Jean-Paul Belmondo’s character in BREATHLESS or vice versa?”

    Back in Austin, none of these were staples despite a 30,000+student population. I lived in the first university co-ed housing, the excellent College House, which selected from a cross-section of disciplines and majors. UT faculty members served as fellows. We often shared meals with them and heated discussions ensued—literary and political, the Vietnam War, the Draft, Bob Dylan, and surprisingly pop art, etc. Of course, everyone at the dinner table would reference films.

    I decided to bite the bullet after and approached College House fellow, Greg Lipscomb, the president of the UT Students Association. I asked to start a film club on campus. Reluctant at first as I made my case, Lipscomb promised to present it before the S.A. board. We lucked out and they gave Cinema 40 a temporary “go” for one semester.

    We were assigned use of the then state-of-the-art Academic Center as our home base. It had 16mm projection, multi-screens, and a great sound system. I scheduled five films for our first season. Godard’s VIVRE SA VIE with the amazing Anna Karina was the first. Influenced by Cinema 16 and the Bleeker St. Theater programming, I reached out to these successful NYC programs to secure distributors; members would prepare film notes for our main feature presentation—something we continued with each film.

    After a successful first season, the Students Association gave their approval for Cinema 40 as an official on-campus group. Artists, poets, musicians, and those curious from afar engaged in lively discussion in off-campus coffee houses before and after our screenings.

    Cinema 40 had become a mainstay, a vital part of Austin’s cultural life.

    Recalling some of the milestones in Cinema 40’s history has been a daunting project: from a Hollywood in the Thirties Series, an Orson Welles retrospective, an Antonioni trilogy, to Kenneth Anger’s MAGICK LANTERN CYCLE. We brought in special guests like novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet (LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD), and critics Andrew Sarris, Ernest Callenbach, Jonas Mekas, Dwight MacDonald, Judith Crist, and Hans Richter, the German avant-garde cineaste. Filmmakers who visited included Jean-Luc Godard, D. A. Pennebaker, Bruce Connor, Gerard Malanga, Stan Brakhage, Bruce Billie, etc.

    I left Cinema 40 in 1969 to teach in a rural Texas school. David Berman, an ardent film buff, took over the group, and under his stewardship it continued to grow and break new ground. One was a screening of Warhol’s two-screen masterpiece THE CHELSEA GIRLS. Later in the 1970s Cinema 40 was banned from the campus for screening another Warhol film, TRASH. And earlier we had the Austin vice patrol shut down a screening of Jack Smith’s FLAMING CREATURES. Still we continued to forge ahead.

    I’d be bereft if I didn’t include the following who helped shape Cinema 40: Peter Soderbergh (yes, Stephen’s dad); Stanley Donner, head of the RTF department; William Arrowsmith; Roger Shattuck; and above all, our membership and those who led the discussions and edited our Harbinger quarterly.

    Today, remnants of what once was remain—but more importantly is the influence Cinema 40 had in making Austin a major film center: the UT film department, the Austin Film Society, Cinema Texas, and yes, SXSW. If Cinema 40 contributed to bringing film culture to Austin, it succeeded.

    To quote Jonas Mekas, who passed away this year: “Film is light and sound. It continues to re-invent itself, offering visions that we couldn’t image existed.”

  10. Listen to This: Bob Byington on Today’s Independent Filmmaking Landscape

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    (Kaley Wheless (l) and Bob Byington (r) on the set of FRANCES FERGUSON)

    FRANCES FERGUSON screens on October 26 at AFS Cinema with Director Bob Byington in attendance, followed by a Q&A moderated by actor Kevin Corrigan. Purchase tickets.

    On this episode of the AFS Viewfinders podcast, AFS’s Lars Nilsen talks with Austin-based filmmaker Bob Byington about his new dark comedy FRANCES FERGUSON screening this weekend at the AFS Cinema. The film follows a young, attractive and bored Midwestern high school teacher who makes the unfortunate mistake of sleeping with one of her students, featuring Nick Offerman, Martin Starr, David Krumholtz, and newcomer Kaley Wheless in a breakout performance as Frances. Byington’s previous features include RSO (REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER) (2008), HARMONY AND ME (2009), 7 CHINESE BOTHERS (2015), and SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME (2012) and INFINITY BABY (2017)—both making their premieres at SXSW.

    Listen in as Byington is joined in conversation with Wheless about the making of FRANCES, the current landscape of independent filmmaking, how Austin has changed, and working with friends and frequent collaborators including Offerman, Starr, Keith Poulson, Kevin Corrigan, Kristen Tucker, and actor-director Andrew Bujalski, among many others.

    Be sure to stick around on October 26—Byington will also host a special screening of Vincent Gallo’s indie classic BUFFALO ‘66 at 7:45 PM, with Corrigan joining him for a Q&A afterwards.

  11. Watch This: Paul Thomas Anderson and Robert Downey, Sr. Talk Putney Swope

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    PUTNEY SWOPE screens October 16 & 18 at AFS Cinema. Purchase tickets.

    Robert Downey, Sr.’s brilliant 1969 cultural satire has been directly cited as an influence on comedians and filmmakers alike, including Eddie Murphy, Jim Jarmusch, the Coen Brothers, Boots Riley, and Paul Thomas Anderson⁠—who even used Downey as an actor in BOOGIE NIGHTS and MAGNOLIA.

    With PUTNEY SWOPE opening this Wednesday and in spirit of that memorable collaboration, we’d like share this conversation with Paul Thomas Anderson and Robert Downey, Sr. discussing the enduring legacy of the film.

     

     

     

  12. Listen to This: Biographer Noah Isenberg on the Cursed Career of Edgar G. Ulmer

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    The October 2019 Essential Cinema series, Edgar G. Ulmer: Prince of Poverty Row starts October 10 with RUTHLESS at the AFS Cinema. Check out the full line-up and purchase tickets here.

    On this episode of the AFS Viewfinders podcast, AFS’ Lars Nilsen talks with Noah Isenberg, Chair of the University of Texas at Austin’s Radio-Television-Film department and author of Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins, about our upcoming Ulmer series. Guest-programmed by Isenberg, the series showcases films by the famously obscure émigré filmmaker and “King of the Bs,” Edgar G. Ulmer, including RUTHLESS, THE MAN FROM PLANET X, THE NAKED DAWN, AMERICAN MATCHMAKER, and THE BLACK CAT—a bizarre gothic-nouveau psychological terror masterpiece starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi just in time for Halloween season.

    If he was known at all, it was mainly due to his breathtaking low-budget noir film DETOUR from 1945. Listen in as Nilsen and Isenberg explore Ulmer’s near thirty-five-year career as a director, which encompassed everything from a masterfully brilliant but doomed entry in the Universal horror cycle, four Yiddish features, a Mexican western (Truffaut called it “a small gift from Hollywood”), a few sci-fi quickies, and other minor wonders from Poverty Row. Select screenings in the series will be hosted by Isenberg. 

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