At the Table of Hong Sang-soo
Written by Diane Killough, AFS Creative Careers Intern Across Hong Sang-Soo’s body of work, tables serve as a focal point for interactions between his characters. For the average Hong Sang-soo protagonist, life is typically complicated, frequently made messier by their own actions. Days are often filled with fumbled social encounters and misunderstandings, and an underlying […]
The AFS Guide to SXSW 2024
SXSW is a magical time of the year where, for a few weeks in March, the world turns its eyes on Austin, and the entire city transforms to exhibit the freshest work across creative disciplines and host countless artists, industry titans, fans, and supporters. For us, it’s all about the films and the Texas filmmakers […]
Jean-Luc Godard in the ’80s: A Cinematic Revolution Continues
Written by Mia Shippey, AFS Creative Careers Intern The 1980s marked a transformative period for cinema, and one name that continued to resonate with cinephiles everywhere was Jean-Luc Godard. The French New Wave pioneer, known for his groundbreaking work in the ’60s, ventured into the ’80s with a fervor that reflected the era’s spirit of […]
BLOOD FEAST: THE GOOD THE BAD & THE BLOODY
Written by Andy Corrales, AFS Creative Careers Intern “An idea based in bloodlust could spread quickly in a civilization based on superstition.” — Detective Pete Thornton, BLOOD FEAST This December, AFS Cinema is wrapping up its series Essential Cinema: The Original Indies with a pair of screenings of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s BLOOD FEAST on December […]
Meet The Recipients of the 2023 AFS Grant for Feature Films
You know the feeling you get when you give a gift to someone you really care about, one you’re sure is going to mean a lot to them? That’s how it feels announcing the filmmakers chosen in each cycle of the AFS Grant. And with summer drawing to a close, it’s time for us to […]
THE UNFLINCHING AND VOYEURISTIC ART OF SOPHIE CALLE AND HERVÉ GUIBERT
Written by Andrea Cardenas, Creative Careers Intern The experimental road film, NO SEX LAST NIGHT (1996), co-directed by French artist Sophie Calle and American photographer Greg Shephard (and playing at AFS Cinema as part of our latest Essential Cinema series), is a quasi-fictional exploration of a woman and man traveling from New York to California, […]
The Many Branches of Naomi Kawase’s Cinematic Family Tree
Written by Joshua Bippert, AFS Creative Careers Intern Naomi Kawase is searching — searching for answers to her own familial histories and to her own identity. The Japanese director searches in grainy personal film diaries or, at times, lyrical narrative features. As part of Austin Film Society’s latest Essential Cinema series, YOU’RE MY GREATEST TREASURE: […]
NOT YOUR AVERAGE AGATHA CHRISTIE: A LOOK INSIDE THE RAZOR-SHARP MYSTERY THE LAST OF SHEILA
Written by Andrea Cardenas, AFS Creative Careers Intern This summer, the Austin Film Society will be presenting THE LAST OF SHEILA with a special member mixer on June 30 before the film. On a fateful night in 1968, musical theater titan Stephen Sondheim and actor Anthony Perkins organized one of their famous and beloved treasure […]
Machine Guns, Cocaine, and Fireworks: The Adolescent Films of Shinji Sômai
Written by Joshua Bippert, AFS Creative Careers Intern This month, as a part of AFS Cinema’s LATES series, Austin Film Society will be presenting Shinji Sômai’s sophomore feature, SAILOR SUIT AND MACHINE GUN. In a time when Japan’s studio systems were collapsing, directors like Sômai — as well as Nobuhiko Obayashi (HAUSU) — were creating […]
FOR THE RECORD, A Doc Days 2023 Filmmaker Conversation
Interview by Todd Savage, Journalist and Doc Days Co-founder. Featured image by Yvonne Uwah. FOR THE RECORD screened at AFS Cinema on Sunday, May 28, as part of the Texas Shorts program during Doc Days 2023. This AFS-supported short film chronicles the fate of publisher Laurie Ezzell Brown and her family-owned community newspaper, The Canadian Record, […]
NAKED GARDENS, A Doc Days 2023 Filmmaker Conversation
Interview by Todd Savage, Journalist and Doc Days Co-founder. Featured image by Heather Leah Kennedy. NAKED GARDENS screened Friday, May 26, at AFS Cinema as a part of Doc Days 2023. It is the latest film from AFS-supported filmmakers Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan (PAHOKEE), who literally bared all in making their portrait of a nudist […]
GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT, A Doc Days 2023 Filmmaker Conversation
Interview by Todd Savage, Journalist and Doc Days Co-founder. Featured image by Heather Leah Kennedy. GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT screened Sunday, May 28, at AFS Cinema as a part of Doc Days 2023. Winner of the 2023 Sundance Grand Jury Award, the documentary charts the long career of one of America’s greatest […]
