Austin Film Society Announces Recipients of the 2024 AFS Grant for Feature Films
This Year’s Grant Funding Will Support 18 Projects Made by 20 Texas Filmmakers
September 12, 2024, AUSTIN, TX— The Austin Film Society announces 20 filmmaker recipients of the 2024 AFS Grant for Feature Films, the annually renewed production fund for emerging Texas filmmakers. Since its creation in 1996, the AFS Grant has awarded more than $2.7 million in cash grants to 533 filmmakers, creating life-changing opportunities for Texas artists working outside of the nation’s large industry centers. A vital resource for independent filmmakers, the AFS Grant is intended to support career leaps for emerging to mid-career artists residing in Texas. This latest group of grantees represents the creative potential of the filmmakers in the state and is a testament to the power and diversity of Texas filmmakers and Texas stories.
The full list of 2024 AFS Grantees for Feature Films is below. Stills and headshots can be found here.
AFS CEO Rebecca Campbell stated, “The AFS Grant is one of the few funding opportunities in existence for Texas artists working in any style or genre of film.” Campbell continued, “By supporting emerging talent at a crucial stage in their creative journey, we aim to amplify important voices in our flourishing regional film community. The AFS Grant is at the center of everything we do at AFS. It reminds us annually that artists are at the leading edge of culture and that it takes a community of support to ensure they can share their vision with the world.”
Grants in this funding cycle are awarded to feature-length films — those longer than 40 minutes — in any phase of production. In this cycle, $122,000 in cash was awarded to 18 projects selected from 94 eligible applications, which means 19% of the projects reviewed received grant funding. Out of this year’s recipients, nine filmmakers are receiving AFS support for their first feature-length films.
This year’s projects reflect AFS’s commitment to identifying and funding exceptional artistic voices that reflect the diversity of the state with the goal of creating a more inclusive film sector and better representation of the citizenry within the broader industry. Many of AFS’s grantees hail from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the director category in the film industry nationally, including those who identify with the LGBTQIA+ community, a community of color, as a woman or as someone with a disability. Detailed demographic data pertaining to the 2024 AFS Grant for Feature Films is included in the addendum below.
In order to provide support to mid-career filmmakers in Texas, the AFS Grant for Feature Films includes a section dedicated to projects in development by experienced artists. The narrative feature Asian Night by Yen Tan and Untitled Music Interpreter Project, a documentary by Cassie Hay and Karen Skloss, were both chosen as this year’s recipients of development funding through the AFS Grant for Feature Films.
For the seventh year, AFS is proud to offer the New Texas Voices Award, a cash grant of $10,000 and industry mentorship for a first-time filmmaker of color making a feature-length film. This year’s award is sponsored by the Warren Skaaren Charitable Trust, and the recipient was Tania Cattebeke Laconich for her documentary feature Yren (which also will receive the Stuck On On DCP Award).
AFS continues to partner with Ley Line Entertainment, David Lowery and the Oak Cliff Film Festival to fund debut feature projects by underrepresented north-Texas-based directors through the North Texas Pioneer Film Award (a special section of the AFS Grant program). This year’s recipients of these funds included Liz Cardenas for Jill Takes A Break, Justin Jay Jones for On Firm Ground, Josh David Jordan for El Tonto Por Cristo and Michael Rowley for Immortal.
In addition to cash grants, AFS Grant partners offered significant in-kind support goods and services. Garrett Forbes received the MPS Camera and Lighting Austin Award for his film Sandfighter in the form of a multi-day camera package rental valued at up to $10,000. In addition, two filmmakers received theatrical digital cinema packages (DCP) for their features through the Stuck On On DCP Grant: Tania Cattebeke Laconich for her film Yren (which also received the New Texas Voices Award) and Bryan Poyser for his film Leads. These in-kind awards were given in conjunction with cash grants.
The AFS Grant selections are made by a panel of industry experts. Those who jury the production grant reside outside of the state of Texas and are integral in selecting new and diverse talent. This year’s grant review panel included Raven Jackson, an award-winning filmmaker, poet, and photographer from Tennessee whose debut narrative film, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (made in partnership with Maria Altamirano, PASTEL and A24), world-premiered in the US Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and was named one of the top ten movies of the year by The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and RogerEbert.com. This year’s panel also included Sudeep Sharma who has been a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival since 2008 and serves as the Director of Programming for the Palm Spring International ShortFest. Sharma has also previously helped with programming at many other festivals and was Director of Public Programming for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science. Darcy McKinnon also participated as a panelist for this year’s grant for feature films. McKinnon is a documentary filmmaker based in New Orleans whose work focuses on the American South and the Caribbean. Recent projects of hers include A King Like Me and Roleplay (premiering at SXSW 2024), Commuted (PBS, 2024), Algiers, America (Hulu, 2023) and Under G-d (Sundance 2023). Elizabeth Avellán, co-founder and president of Troublemaker Studios and Austin-based independent producer, served as a juror for projects in development.
A diverse committee of filmmakers, film industry professionals and former AFS Grant recipients act as first-round reviewers, providing feedback and recommendations to the panel. Reviewers included Edna Diaz, James Faust, Jim Kolmar, Daniel Laabs, Jean Anne Lauer, Samantha Rae Lopez, Josh Martin, Lizett Montiel, Pedro Rivas, Michael Robinson, Manuel Solis, Angie Reza Tures and Neil Creque Williams. This year’s grant was administered by AFS Head of Film and Creative Media Holly Herrick, Senior Director of Programs Erica Deiparine Sugars, Senior Manager of Filmmaker Support Sharon Arteaga, Filmmaker Support Program Associate Maryan Nagy Captan and Intern Yasmin Evans.
More About the AFS Grant
The AFS Grant is administered with two application periods and deadlines. The AFS Grant for Feature Films application cycle is for documentary and narrative feature-length film projects (over 40 minutes) in any phase of production or feature-length films in development. The AFS Grant for Short Films application cycle is for short films, 40 minutes or under in length. The application cycle for short films closes on September 12, 2024, at 6 PM CT.
Some of AFS’s most successful program alumni over the years have received grants from AFS. Filmmakers Kat Candler (former showrunner of O Network’s Queen Sugar, Hellion, 13 Reasons Why), David Lowery (The Green Knight, Pete’s Dragon, A Ghost Story), Channing Godfrey Peoples (Miss Juneteenth) and Andrew Bujalski (Support The Girls) were all awarded support through the AFS Grant Fund.
The AFS Grant is generously supported by grant partners Ley Line Entertainment, David Lowery, Oak Cliff Film Festival, the Warren Skaaren Charitable Trust, Kat Candler, Kyle and Noah Hawley, South by Southwest, MPS Camera and Lighting Austin and Stuck On On, in addition to the City of Austin Economic Development Department/Cultural Arts Division and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
Recipients of the 2024 AFS Grant for Feature Films
Projects in Production:
Austin Black Freedom Communities
Director: Funmi Ogunro (Pflugerville, TX)
Documentary Feature in Post-Production
Description: In the aftermath of the Civil War, formerly enslaved African Americans forged resilient Freedom Communities across Texas, including over 13 vibrant enclaves in Austin, Texas. Austin Black Freedom Communities delves into this forgotten history through the stories of descendants from these communities.
Biological Exuberance
Director: Kelly Daniela Norris (Austin, TX)
Documentary Feature in Production
Description: Biological Exuberance celebrates the diversity of gender and sexuality in nature and exposes its history of suppression by the scientific community.
Cohetes
Director: Drew Saplin (Austin, TX)
Narrative Feature in Post-Production
Description: A rookie pyrotechnician assembles a group of townies to transport a truckload of volatile, illegal fireworks down the Texas Coast on the 4th of July without getting caught or killed.
Confessions of a Menopausal Man
Director: Sachin Dheeraj Mudigonda (Conroe, TX)
Narrative Feature in Pre-Production
Description: An optimistic farmer with early-onset dementia leaves his ancestral land for a city job to support his pregnant wife, recording heartfelt voice messages to his unborn child as India’s shift to renewable energy clouds his future.
El Tonto Por Cristo
Director: Josh David Jordan (Dallas, TX)
Narrative Feature in Post-Production — North Texas Pioneer Award
Description: A monk in a monastery on the coast of Texas embraces the life of a holy fool.
Immortal
Director: Michael Rowley (Dallas, TX)
Documentary Feature in Production — North Texas Pioneer Award
Description: Following the groundbreaking creation of an immortal heart cell in his lab, a world-renowned stem cell researcher is accused of a murder-suicide. When his only daughter strives to clear his name by enlisting the help of a documentary filmmaker, the twisted path to the truth becomes personal.
Jill Takes A Break
Director: Liz Cardenas (Dallas, TX)
Narrative Feature in Pre-Production — North Texas Pioneer Award
Description: Carefree and wild Jill finally takes control of her future by buying the dive bar she’s worked at for years. When she’s unexpectedly hit with a health crisis, she’s forced to examine what she truly wants that future to be.
Leads
Director: Bryan Poyser (Austin, TX)
Narrative Feature in Post-Production — Stuck On On DCP Award
Description: An acting professor has her life upended when her charming but volatile baby brother joins her acting class.
Lepes
Director: Rayell Abad Guangorena (El Paso, TX)
Narrative Feature in Post-Production
Description: In the absence of his workaholic mother, Pedro takes refuge in the friendly company of the employees of a funeral home. It will be Samo, the embalmer, who will help him navigate between the hustle and bustle of school and the awakening of love.
Not Fade Away
Director: Jim Mendiola (San Antonio, TX)
Documentary Feature in Production
Description: Part archive project, part essay film, Not Fade Away tells the history of San Antonio’s storied Mexican-American West Side through VHS home movies shot by its residents, archival photos, and interviews. Narrated by the filmmaker’s story of moving into the neighborhood after twenty years in California, the film explores a gentrifying 150-year-old community on the brink of disappearance.
On Firm Ground
Director: Justin Jay Jones (Austin, TX)
Documentary Feature in Production — North Texas Pioneer Award
Description: In a race against time, two people battling Parkinson’s disease embark on a journey of hope as they undergo brain surgery to reclaim their lives. Meanwhile, fueled by personal loss, their devoted friend leads a determined charge to raise awareness for the disease in an inspiring fight for a cure.
Sandfighter
Director: Garrett Forbes (Austin, TX)
Documentary Feature in Post-Production — MPS Camera And Lighting Austin Award
Description: A fourth-generation cotton farmer in the Texas Panhandle is torn between economic and environmental sustainability as he fights to secure his family’s future against looming environmental collapse.
Teenage Supernovas (Working Title)
Director: William F. Reed (Austin, TX)
Documentary Feature in Post-Production
Description: Armed with nothing but a camera and a dream, two 13-year-old girls navigate the labyrinth of film production, from backyard sets to professional studios, in their quest to make their sci-fi feature film, Nova. What begins as a childhood dream turns into a poignant exploration of friendship, ambition, and loss.
Walker
Director: Amy Bench (Austin, TX)
Documentary Feature in Post-Production
Description: Walker is a verité portrait of a deaf advocate and father from Baton Rouge driven by his family’s experiences to help those affected by incarceration.
Where The Sun Sets
Directors: Aí Vuong and Samuel Díaz Fernández (Austin, TX)
Documentary Feature in Pre-Production
Description: A young ethnic-Khmer dancer returns to her hometown in Vietnam to perform Apsara at the annual water festival. As she travels across the Mekong, her memories and dreams are interwoven with parallel lives in borderland communities across Thailand and Cambodia.
Yren
Director: Tania Cattebeke Laconich (Austin, TX)
Documentary Feature in Post-Production — New Texas Voices Award and Stuck On On DCP Award
Description: Yren follows trans-activist Yren Rotela in conservative Paraguay, where the life expectancy for a trans person is around 35 years. Yren and her peers take action to self-sustain Casa Diversa, the only TLGBQ+ home shelter in the country, while they fight for their rights and to build a better future.
Projects in Development:
Asian Night
Director: Yen Tan (Austin, TX)
Narrative Feature in Development
Untitled Music Interpreter Project
Directors: Cassie Hay and Karen Skloss (Austin, TX)
Documentary Feature in Development
About Austin Film Society
Founded in 1985 by filmmaker Richard Linklater, AFS creates life-changing opportunities for filmmakers, catalyzes Austin and Texas as a creative hub, and brings the community together around great film. AFS is committed to racial equity and inclusion, with an objective to deliver programs that actively dismantle the structural racism, sexism and other bias in the screen industries. AFS supports filmmakers from all backgrounds towards career leaps, encouraging exceptional artistic projects with grants and support services. AFS operates Austin Studios, a 20-acre production facility, to attract and grow the creative media ecosystem. Austin Public, a space for our city’s diverse mediamakers to train and collaborate, provides many points of access to filmmaking and film careers. The AFS Cinema is an ambitiously programmed repertory and first run arthouse with broad community engagement. By hosting premieres, local and international industry events, and the Texas Film Awards, AFS shines the national spotlight on Texas filmmakers while connecting Austin and Texas to the wider film community. AFS is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Media Contact
Will Stefanski
will@austinfilm.org | (512) 322-0145 ext. 3234
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NOTE: GRANT RECIPIENT DEMOGRAPHICS
The data we’re sharing has been provided to the Austin Film Society by the program participants directly. Note that some artists choose not to self-identify.
Demographic Data
Grant Recipients: In this grant cycle, 20 directors were selected for funding across 18 projects. Of the directors receiving grant funds, 8 identified as female (40%), 3 grant recipients identified as members of the LGBTQIA+ community (16%) and 13 recipients identified with a community of color (61%).
Total Applicants: Out of the 105 eligible filmmakers that applied for funding through the 2024 AFS Grant for Feature Films, 28 identified as female (26%) and 5 as non-binary (4%), 18 as members of the LGBTQIA+ community (17%) and 54 identified with a community of color (50%).
