Category Archive: Uncategorized

1. Meet the Recipients of the 2022 AFS Grant for Feature Films

   September 7, 2022 12:41 pm Leave a Comment

    

   Today, AFS announced the 2022 recipients of the AFS Grant for Feature Films, the annually renewed fund for emerging Texas filmmakers. Eleven projects by fourteen director applicants were selected for awards: four narrative features, six documentaries, and one experimental feature. As with each group of grantees, this year’s roster is one you’ll want to keep an eye on as they develop and refine their feature films.

   Funding from AFS Grants provides a vital resource to Texas-based independent filmmakers and a baseline of support for a growing and diversifying independent film scene. The grant is known for creating life-changing opportunities for artists based in Texas, who are often from underrepresented backgrounds, and working outside of the large coastal industry centers. Intended to support career leaps for emerging to mid-career artists in Texas, the AFS Grant often launches the careers of filmmakers who have yet to be recognized by national funders. This year’s group of grantees demonstrates the organization’s ongoing commitment to empowering Texas-based storytellers and creating more access and equity in the regional independent film sector. Read on below to find out more about the filmmakers.

   Meet the 2022 AFS Grant for Feature Films Recipients

   

   HUMMINGBIRDS

   Directed by Estefanía Contreras and Silvia Castaños

   Silvia Castaños and Estefanía Contreras are interdisciplinary artists and directors of HUMMINGBIRDS, a collaborative feature-length self-portrait about their friendship and formative experiences coming of age in Laredo, Texas. HUMMINGBIRDS has received support from Ford Foundation/JustFilms, Field of Vision, Doc Society/Threshold Fund, Sundance Documentary Fund, SFFILM, and Chicken & Egg Pictures. Estefanía and Silvia have represented the HUMMINGBIRDS team as 2021 Sundance/WIF Financing Intensive Fellows, 2021 NBCU Original Voices Fellows, 2022 BAVC fellows, and as participants in 2022 Visions du Reel’s Works in Progress. In addition to filmmaking, Estefanía is a musician, photographer, and tattoo artist who dreams of living in space. Silvia is a poet, community organizer, and a transit planner for the City of Boston. While in post-production on HUMMINGBIRDS, they are developing a new collaborative film portrait of women’s lives on both sides of the border.

   

   LOST SOULZ

   Directed by Katherine Propper

   Katherine Propper is an Austin-based writer and director. Her short film BIRDS won a special jury prize at SXSW ’22 and at the International Competition at Clermont-Ferrand ’22. Her short films have screened at a variety of film festivals around the world including at BFI London, Tribeca, Palm Springs, Aspen, and have been selected to screen on The New Yorker, Short of the Week, PBS, and Omeleto. Her AFS-supported feature debut LOST SOULZ is participating in Gotham Week’s Narrative Feature Lab 2022.
   

   PRECIOUS CARGO

   Directed by Hammad Rizvi

   Hammad Rizvi is an award-winning writer and director based in Texas. As a Pakistani-American and Third Culture Kid, his films often showcase stories that are as diverse as they are raw. He is best recognized for his films RANI (Hulu, NBCUniversal Short Film Festival), ROAD TO PESHAWAR (Palm Springs Shortfest), and SUNNY SQUARE (Houston Worldfest). Hammad received his MFA from UT-Austin, is currently developing his first feature film, and has yet to find a cure for the travel bug.

   

   PROFESSIONAL TEXAN

   Directed by Don Swaynos

   Don Swaynos recently directed the dark comedy DON’T EVER CHANGE. The film was selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick, featured on Short of the Week and Birth.Movies.Death, and is currently distributed by Gunpowder & Sky. Don has also produced several feature films including Berndt Mader & Ben Steinbauer’s comedy doc CHOP & STEELE (Tribeca, Fantastic Fest), Brad Besser’s meta documentary about a documentary BEAVER TRILOGY PART IV (Sundance), and Travis Matthews’ experimental thriller DISCREET (Berlinale). As an editor, Don has cut films for Yen Tan, Anna Margaret Hollyman, Julio Quintana, The New York Times, and the American Genre Film Archive, he has also edited multiple television series including CNN’s Emmy-nominated High Profits.

   

   STATE CHAMPS EAT FREE

   Directed by Adriane McCray

   Adriane McCray is a filmmaker, wandering native Texan and University of Pennsylvania graduate. She is a former Juanita J. Craft artist-in-residence at the South Dallas Cultural Center, in-house resident at The TX Studio, and fellow at BlackStar’s William and Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar. Adriane’s work has been recognized by publications Glasstire and The Guardian, exhibited at Austin’s W&TW and Art214 and currently lives in The Studio Museum of Harlem’s archive. Her films and multimedia work will presented in a solo show at SDCC later this year. After supporting various writers, filmmakers, and video artists, Adriane began writing and directing films of her own. Her latest short film, CHILD RUNAWAYS, premiered at SXSW 2022 as part of the Austin Film Society ShortCase. She’s currently developing feature film STATE CHAMPS EAT FREE, a 2021 Austin Film Festival Drama Semifinalist. As television staff writer, she will join Apple+ limited series, Firebug, based on the true crime podcast by the same name.

   

   STEM ROOTS

   Directed by LaTasha Taylor Starr & Dr. Ariel Leslie

   Professor LaTasha Taylor Starr is the Executive Director of ESTe2M Dreamers, a non-profit organization that strives to improve the academic success rate of local youth by providing opportunities for STEM-focused summer camps, tutoring and after-school programs. Her latest project entitled STEM Roots, follows students through the genetic engineering process from a STEM, confidence building and family engagement perspective. In addition to project based learning activities in DNA collection and analysis, the actual scientific process as well as the student/family perspective will be highlighted as an innovative pathway for comparing information assumed about their heritage with the reality of their African Diaspora roots, discovered through STEM. LaTasha graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautics from Tennessee State University. At the University of Washington (Seattle), LaTasha earned her first Engineering Master’s degree followed by a second Master’s in Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in 2020. Her passion for STEM education is evident through her professorship at Dallas College, San Juan College and Texas A&M University, where she not only teaches Engineering, but also paves the way for student internship collaborations.

   Dr. Ariel Leslie is a native of the DFW metroplex. Upon graduation from Plano East Senior High, she attended Texas Southern University in Houston, TX where she obtained a BS in Mathematics and Health Studies. Dr. Leslie then received her doctoral degree of University of Texas at Arlington in Arlington, TX in December of 2019. She studied and published in the area of computational/mathematical neuroscience. While in graduate school, she was one of eleven National Science Foundation Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation scholars. Dr. Leslie obtained awards for her research and teaching abilities. She is currently a Data and Metrics Analyst at Lockheed Martin, a defense company. Dr. Leslie enjoys spending time with her family and friends, volunteering, and teaching children all about STEM. Sharing crucial information about education and helping others is her true life passion.

   

   THE CHRISTMAS CARD

   Directed by Lucy Kerr

   Lucy Kerr is a filmmaker and artist working through performance and video based in Houston and upstate New York. She received a dual MFA in Film/Video and Art from California Institute of the Arts on the Lillian Disney Scholarship. Kerr received a B.A in Philosophy and a B.A. in Dance and Choreography from The University of Texas at Austin and was the grand prize winner of the University Co-op / George H. Mitchell Awards for Academic Excellence. Her projects have been presented by FIDMarseille, San Sebastian International Film Festival, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, La Mama, REDCAT, Anthology Film Archives, The McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, The MATCH Houston, and others. She was selected to participate in FIDLab 2022, where she won the AirFrance Prize for her film, THE CHRISTMAS CARD, and she received a Travel Grant from Austin Film Society in 2021.

   THE MOTION

   Directed by Huay-Bing Law & Sam Mohney

   Huay-Bing Law is a Taiwanese American director and cinematographer born and raised in Houston, TX. His narrative and documentary films often center on marginalized Asian American stories in the south, and have earned an HBO APA Visionary Award, Princess Grace Award, and played in festivals worldwide. Huay currently resides in Austin, where he lectures at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas State University while developing his first feature film.

   Sam Mohney is a Chinese-American director and cinematographer based in Austin, TX. He holds a BA with Honors in Film Studies from Wesleyan University and an MFA in Film Production from the University of Texas at Austin, where he met collaborator and filmmaking partner Huay-Bing Law. He currently lectures at Texas State University.
   

   

   TONKAWA: THEY ALL STAY TOGETHER

   Directed by Andrew Richey

   Andrew C. Richey has a long career both as a filmmaker and educator. His credits include Fig, directed by Ryan Coogler, a narrative short about human trafficking that was purchased and aired on HBO for two years and the critically-acclaimed documentary CODE BLACK, which was picked up by CBS as a fictional, hour-long drama that ran for three seasons. He also worked with the internationally- renowned director Terrance Malick helping finish the decades old documentary VOYAGE OF TIME reflecting on the entirety of natural history. He has worked in entertainment on three continents over two decades and continues to produce internationally. Andrew received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater Directing from Southwestern University and obtained his MFA at the University of Southern California’s prestigious school of Cinematic Arts. He has taught dramatic arts both in the United States and Taiwan. Presently, he is a Professor in Austin Community College’s RTF program and at Southwestern University. He lives in Austin where his wife and three daughters renew his inspiration daily.

   UNTITLED PHILIPPINES PROJECT

   Directed by PJ Raval

   Named one of Out Magazine’s ‘OUT 100′, PJ Raval is a queer, first generation Filipinx American filmmaker whose work examines social justice issues through the voices of queer and marginalized subjects. PJ’s body of film work has been distributed widely on platforms such as Netflix, PBS and Showtime and has been supported by the Arcus Foundation, Bertha Foundation, Center for Asian-American Media, Firelight Media, Sundance, Tribeca Film Institute, and the Ford Foundation. PJ is a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2021 Soros Justice Fellow. He is a co-founder board member of the queer transmedia arts organization OUTsider, and is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Radio TV Film. He serves on the leadership team of the Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc) and is a Producers Guild of America member, and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences where he serves on the executive committee and the Academy Museum Inclusion Advisory Board.

   

   WHERE THE TREES BEAR MEAT

   Directed by Alexis Franco

   Alexis Franco was born on November 21, 1975. He lives and works in the United States. In his two careers, Cinema and Architecture, he has participated in a selection of projects with worldwide recognition. He was involved in movies like: THE PASSAGE, LOW TIDE, STOP THE POUNDING HEART, THE OTHER SIDE, and WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THE WORLD IS ON FIRE? where he worked with the renowned Film Director Roberto Minervini as his Assistant Director. All the films toured the world with premieres at important festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Argentina, New York, Germany, Spain, etc. He also worked on a documentary in CUBA: EL QUIJOTE DEL CARIBE and eventually was involved as Executive Producer of the film DIRTY FEATHERS which had its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. He studied music at the American Musical Institute where he obtained the titles of Professor of Music. As an Architect in the United States, he became an international member of the American Institute of Architects. In Houston Texas he works at Collaborative Designworks. Alexis designed and participated in many projects that were awarded and recognized state and nationally. Now he is producing a film in Japan and working on his first two films as a director, WHERE THE TREES BEAR MEAT and PERMEABLE PRISONS, in Argentina, Spain, United States, and Portugal.

    

   As always, our AFS Grant recipient projects were chosen by a panel of three esteemed film industry professionals. This year’s panelists included:

   Emmy nominee Xan Aranda is an award-winning filmmaker and showrunner of AppleTV’s forthcoming OMNIVORE, directed by Cary Fukunaga. She is also showrunner of Netflix’s MY LOVE, which filmed in six countries. Xan has worked with HBO, Amazon, Focus Features, the Duplass Brothers, and others.

   Malin Kan is a film programmer based in Los Angeles. She holds a BA in Film and Media Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and an MA from the University of California, Los Angeles in Moving Image Archive Studies. She is currently Senior Programmer, Feature Films, with AFI Festivals at the American Film Institute, where she has been since 2016.

   Hailed by Filmmaker Magazine as one of 2018’s New Faces of Independent Film, Carey Williams is a director bringing a unique and visually striking cinematic eye to the exploration of the human condition. His first feature R#J, a modern-day retelling of Romeo and Juliet, premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and the feature version of his Sundance and SXSW Award-winning short film EMERGENCY, now available via Amazon.

2. September’s Natalie Wood series begins with her breakout role, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE

   August 30, 2022 4:15 pm Leave a Comment

    

   Kicking off September’s Essential Cinema series, Natalie Wood: It’s in the Eyes, is the iconic REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, which served as Wood’s breakout role and helped the actress transition from pigtails to the altogether more adult roles to come later in her career.

   

    

   Before reaching world-wide recognition with films like WEST SIDE STORY, and REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, Natalie Wood was known as a child star, more often than not playing the daughter or granddaughter of famous actors and actresses in films like MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET. At the age of 15, as Wood would later admit, much of her career was decided and facilitated by her parents. So when the role of “Judy” in a film called REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE caught Wood’s eye, it didn’t appear feasible. While this was the first project Wood actively wanted for herself (not pushed to pursue by her parents), it seemed everyone around her deemed it as a bad fit.

   

    

   Both the film’s director Nicholas Ray and the studio expressed concerns that Wood was seen by the public as “too innocent” and “too pure” to be in the film. During the audition process however, Wood was in a terrible car accident with Dennis Hopper where she was thrown from the car. When police asked for the number of her parents, she told them to call Nicholas Ray. When Ray met her at the hospital, Wood said to him: “Nick, they called me a juvenile delinquent, now do I get the part?” Shortly thereafter she was cast in the film, which would later prove to be her breakout role.

   

   

   Check out Wood tell this story in a rare interview from 1975. Watch it here.

   Don’t miss REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, playing Sep 1-3, in 35mm.

3. Delphine Seyrig’s namesake film closes out Essential Cinema: Be Pretty and Shut Up!

   August 23, 2022 3:06 pm Leave a Comment

    

   After years of work as an actress with films such as Last Year at Marienbad, The Day of the Jackal, and Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, Delphine Seyrig desired to make her own projects, ones that accurately reflected her off-screen life as well as the experiences of other women.

   
   

   Seyrig understood that the only solution to female representation in the film industry was female-led production, so along with Ioana Wieder and Carole Roussopoulous, Seyrig formed a filmmaking collective called “Les Insoumuses” or The Defiant Muses. Their work presented Seyrig with the opportunity to create her own projects, such as her documentary Be Pretty and Shut Up!, screening August 25th and 27th, where she interviewed 24 actresses, including Jane Fonda, Shirley Maclaine, Ellen Burstyn, and Jill Clayburgh, who voiced their frustrations with the various forms of sexism they faced as actresses.

   

    

   
   Check out David Hudson’s fantastic piece for Criterion’s The Current on Seyrig and The Defiant Muse collective. Read it here.

   

    

   Make sure to watch Be Pretty and Shut Up!, playing Aug 25-27.

4. PETITE MAMAN’S Celine Sciamma on developing her cinematic voice

   May 3, 2022 3:28 pm Leave a Comment

   
   In case you missed it: Celine Sciamma’s PETITE MAMAN opens at AFS Cinema this week, and in preparation, we are revisiting this fabulous New Yorker profile of Sciamma from February, which gets at the heart of what makes her films so fresh and alive. The piece was written by Elif Batuman, the acclaimed novelist of The Idiot (2018), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The two female artists have a fascinating discussion about narrative, Sciamma’s formative years, and the possibility of making art outside of patriarchal structures. It’s one of the best filmmaker profiles we’ve read in some time and the perfect teaser for Sciamma’s newest film.

   

    

   Celine Sciamma is the director behind the breakthrough PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (2018) and PETITE MAMAN, opening Friday, May 6, at AFS Cinema. Showtimes and details here. 

    

5. AFS @ SXSW 2022

   March 8, 2022 4:40 pm Leave a Comment

   (Still from WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND, directed by Iliana Sosa)

   SXSW 2022 is here! The festival will take place in person from March 11-19, and AFS will have a big presence this year. We are excited to return to SXSW once again with our member showcase. AFS ShortCase is a program of short films made by Austin Film Society MAKE members and is part of SXSW Community screenings. The lineup is curated internally and will be presented at AFS Cinema on Sunday, March 13 at 2:30 pm. The screening is free and provides an opportunity for our members to have their work seen during the 2022 Festival. Visit here for this year’s full schedule.

   And we are thrilled to announce that ten projects from AFS-supported filmmakers will be a part of this year’s official roster. Five of those projects making their world premieres were directly funded by the AFS Grant. Opportunities like SXSW shine a spotlight on the very purpose of AFS’s grant program—to support and elevate the incredibly diverse voices of our region’s emerging filmmakers and help them share their stories with Texas and the world. The full list of films is below and you can find the complete schedule at sxsw.com.

   AFS Grant Funded Films

   WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND
   Directed by Iliana Sosa
   After a lifetime of bus rides to the US to visit his children, Julián quietly starts building a house in rural Mexico. In filming his work, his granddaughter crafts a personal and poetic love letter to him and his homeland. (Documentary Spotlight)

   Read more about WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND in this feature by Chale Nafus for Sightlines magazine

   THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY
   Directed by Morrisa Maltz
   An unexpected invitation launches a grieving young woman on a solitary road trip through the American Midwest as she struggles to reconcile the losses of her past with the dreams of her future. Cast List: Lily Gladstone, Raymond Lee, Richard Ray Whitman, Lainey Bearkiller Shangreaux, Devin Shangreaux, Jasmine “Jazzy” Bearkiller Shangreaux, Pam Richter, Dale Leander Toller, Florence R. Perrin, Teresa Boyd (Visions)

   ACT OF GOD
   Directed by Spencer Cook and Parker Smith
   A disabled man’s commute is interrupted by a $100 bill lying on the sidewalk, just out of reach. It flutters away as soon as he moves towards it, leading him on a chase that forces him to reconsider his toxic ideal of self-sufficiency. (Texas Shorts)

   BIRDS
   Directed by Katherine Propper
   Moments in the lives of Austin teenagers during the heat of Texas summer. (Texas Shorts)

   MORE THAN I REMEMBER
   Directed by Amy Bench
   One night at her home in southeastern Congo, 14-year-old Mugeni awakes to the sounds of bombs. As her family scatters to the surrounding forests to save themselves, Mugeni finds herself completely alone. (Texas Shorts)

   Other Previously Supported Filmmakers and Films

   DESCENDANT
   Directed by Margaret Brown
   Descendant follows the search for and discovery of The Clotilda, the last known ship to illegally carry enslaved Africans in the United States. Guided by the voices of their ancestors, descendants of The Clotilda’s survivors reclaim their past and examine what justice looks like today. (Festival Favorites)

   FACING NOLAN
   Directed by Bradley Jackson
   In the world of Major League Baseball no one has created a mythology like Nolan Ryan. Told from the point of view of the hitters who faced him and the teammates who revered him, Facing Nolan is the definitive documentary of a Texas legend. (Documentary Spotlight)

   THE SENTENCE OF MICHAEL THOMPSON
   Directed by Haley Elizabeth Anderson and Kyle Thrash
   Michael Thompson is the longest serving non-violent offender in the history of Michigan and he is finally up for clemency. After 25 years, 3 appeals, and 2 denied applications for clemency it seems like Michael may finally have a chance at freedom. (Documentary Shorts)

   SOFT ANIMALS
   Directed by Renee Zhan
   Two ex-lovers cross paths at a train station. (Animated Shorts)

   SHOUTING DOWN MIDNIGHT
   Directed by Gretchen Stoeltje
   Both cautionary tale and rallying cry, Shouting Down Midnight recounts how the Wendy Davis filibuster of 2013 galvanized a new generation of activists and reveals what is at stake for us all in the struggle for reproductive freedom. (Documentary Spotlight)

    

6. AFS Lead Programmer Lars Nilsen’s Sundance 2022 Favorites

   February 22, 2022 5:56 pm Leave a Comment

   Hello everyone, Lars Nilsen here. Last month I “attended” Sundance for the eighth time, and, unfortunately, for the second year running I was on my couch when I did it. On the plus side, it meant I could experience the whole thing under climate controlled circumstances, with the convenience of my refrigerator and pantry nearby, but naturally one loses something when deprived of the true big screen experience, and there are no opportunities to meet, greet and deal. Grousing aside, here are a few of my favorites from this year’s fest. I should note that I was primarily evaluating films in my role as Cinema Programmer, so I skipped some of the buzzier but – alas – destined for streaming titles. And, as always, I watch a lot of documentaries. Here goes:

   

   AFTER YANG:

   The newest film from Kogonada (COLUMBUS) is a highly engaging, thoughtful work of speculative science fiction about a family who buy a cybernetic android assistant (the Yang of the title) to help with the raising of their daughter, and the difficulties that arise when the unit goes on the blink. Kogonada, who has an able touch with the smallest interactions, finds drama and import in the tiniest details. A satisfying and provocative work from a director who got his start making video essays about his auteur heroes and now seems poised to join them.

   

   BRAINWASHED: SEX-CAMERA-POWER:

   When Nina Menkes joined us virtually a while back for a screening of her newly restored film QUEEN OF DIAMONDS, she talked a bit about this project, a filmed version of a stage monologue and presentation she has done many times. In it she ties together the recent #metoo movement the outrages that provoked it with the tendencies of some Cinema, even Great Cinema, to objectify women through a lens of power and domination. It’s an extraordinarily lucid presentation – she uses clips from some of the masters to make her points. Notably, Menkes does not call for these films to be discarded, just to be read and understood more closely as symptomatic of the culture that gave rise to them.

   

   DESCENDANT:

   Filmmaker Margaret Brown has been well known to many of us here in Austin from as far back as her Townes Van Zandt doc BE HERE TO LOVE ME in 2004 and she’s been very busy since, making some of the best documentaries out there. She has always been especially interested in the Gulf Coast, particularly her hometown of Mobile, Alabama. In her new doc, DESCENDANT she has found particularly rich subject matter – the search for the last slave ship, the Clotilda, which was sunk by its owners after its final, illegal voyage. As Faulkner said, the past is never dead, it’s not even past. And this proves to be true as the residents of the Africatown section of Mobile, many of them descendants of those same enslaved people, spearhead the search for the sunken vessel. Most fascinating is the struggle to define past history, seen here in microcosm as the entire city – in which the former slaveowner families still wield enormous and political power – and the descendants face off over telling the truth to future generations.

   

   DOS ESTACIONES:

   Like Margaret Brown, Juan Pablo González is a filmmaker who has been supported in his endeavors in the past by AFS Grants. In this, his latest film, he moves from documentaries to a drama so full of authentic detail that it could almost pass as non-fiction. It is the story of a family-owned tequila distillery in Jalisco overseen by a very hands-on chief, Señora María, played with powerful restraint by Teresa Sánchez. For much of the running time we watch the ins and outs of tequila distillation – a fascinating and photogenic process – even as we are made aware of certain existential challenges facing the business. At the same time, a younger woman with more modern ideas (Rafaela Fuentes) enters the picture, and I’ll just shut up, because you need to see this film. Some movies are digested entirely by the time the end credits roll. This is not one of them. The images and characters tend to stick with you long afterwards. A good thing.

   

   FREE CHOL SOO LEE:

   Eugene Yi and Julie Ha’s documentary depicts an injustice and its fascinating aftermath. In 1973 a gangland murder occurred in San Francisco’s Chinatown. A group of white tourists identified the killer as 20-year old Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee, and he was convicted for the crime but after serious procedural questions were raised, he was granted a new trial. A couple of details make this story so compelling: first is the nature of the community coalition that arose to defend Lee – a mix of Berkeley radicals and conservative Asian-American businesspeople; second is the later life of Lee himself, formerly a hero and martyr he found himself again on the outside. In many ways this is an American tragedy. It often happens that documentaries with especially resonant characters are remade into narrative films. Though I am a bit ambivalent about this trend, this is a prime candidate for such treatment.

   

   MY OLD SCHOOL:

   It’s very difficult to write about this film without spoiling any details about the case it describes, but I’ll try. Back in the early ’90s, a new student named Brandon Lee appeared at the private high school Bearsden Academy in Glasgow. He said he was from Canada and was both more awkward and more sophisticated than his fellow students. That may be as much as I can say. Suffice to say, it’s one of those “truth is stranger than fiction” kinds of things. Though the film is a documentary – featuring clever and numerous animated re-enactments as well as interviews with the former students – Alan Cumming appears as “Lee” here, lip-synching the audio interviews provided by the real “Brandon Lee.” Very funny and mostly pretty light, this one really hit the spot after a lot of heavy stuff at the fest.

7. The Programmer’s Bookshelf Part Two: Jazmyne Moreno

   February 15, 2022 12:45 pm Leave a Comment

    

   This week we bring you our second installment of the Programmer’s Bookshelf. Here, AFS’s Associate Programmer Jazmyne Moreno takes us behind the scenes of a few of her favorite titles and into the minds of a colorful cast of characters.

   
   Changing 
   “Bergman’s muse and collaborator reflects on her life from childhood to her career on the stage and screen. As with any memoir, it’d be a tedious read if Ullmann weren’t so compelling. One of my most prized books, this copy is a special edition, signed by the star herself.”
   
   _________________________________________________________
   
   Retratos Ibéricos 
   “Bigas Luna was an incredible artist and filmmaker. This book offers insight into his creative mind, while providing some rare onset images from the making of The Iberian Trilogy [JAMÓN JAMÓN, GOLDEN BALLS, and THE TIT AND THE MOON].”

   
   
   

    

   Check out Instagram for more images from the book: austinfilm

   JAMÓN JAMÓN screens on February 18 & 20, 2022 as part of our Love Month series at the AFS Cinema.

   _______________________________________________________
    
   
   Midnight Baby
   “There isn’t a more eloquent way to describe the explosive autobiography of the Oscar-nominated singer-songwriter Dory Previn, best known for her composition of the theme song for THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, sung by Dionne Warwick, and her connection to Mia Farrow.” Dory Previn’s life was wild, sad, incredible, and her book makes for an amazing read.”

   

   _________________________________________________
   
   
   All I Need is Love 
   “I don’t need to say much about Klaus Kinski and his incendiary “autobiography.” Featured in BEFORE SUNRISE, read it (if you can get your hands on it) for his version of events on the production of AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD and check out Jesus Christ Saviour.”
    
   Kinski interview in promotion of Jesus Christus Erlöser (Jesus Christ Saviour):

    ________________________________________________
   
   
   The Girl of Silence – The Photography 
   “THE GIRL OF SILENCE is a film I’ve never seen. Photographer George Hashiguchi spent two months on set, photographing the cast, and their makeshift family. The images are stark and haunting. Maybe I’ll get around to watching the film, based on the writings of Shungiku Uchida (VISITOR Q), at some point, but for now, this book is enough.”
    
   

   

8. The Programmer’s Bookshelf Part One: AFS’ Lars Nilsen

   February 1, 2022 7:29 pm Leave a Comment

   We’re all about movies, but every so often we love a good book. So, we asked our programmers for a little peek at their bookshelves. This week, AFS’ Lead Programmer Lars Nilsen tells us of the books that changed his life, opened his mind, and gave him a cluckin’ good time.

   Psychotronic Encyclopedia
   “For me, this was the book that sent me on countless expeditions into video stores, hunting for titles I had read about in Mike Weldon’s concise yet opinionated blurbs. It changed the whole idea of what “real” movies are for me and lit up my own movie galaxy with stars like John Carradine, Mamie Van Doren and Cash Flagg. I am into a lot of different stuff now but this was the book that really grabbed me and didn’t let go. I practically know it by heart.”
   
   
   Nightmare Of Ecstasy
   “I’m sure everyone reading this is a big fan of Rudolph Grey‘s noise guitar work. Just kidding. I’d be surprised if you ever heard it, but that was what led me to pick up this book, an oral history of Edward D. Wood, Jr. It was eventually optioned and turned into a Disney movie – one of the weirdest things that has ever happened – but the book is way better. You get more of a sense of the guy, his priorities and the family atmosphere that suffused his working life. I wish there were 800 more pages of this stuff.”
   
   Are You In The House Alone
   “It was my plan here not to include books by my friends but I am already breaking that rule, simply because later this month the editor and primary author of this one Amanda Reyes will join us for our first foray into actual television with the History Of Television Masters & Methods series on Austin Public Channel 12. This book is a much-needed resource, a compendium of made for television movie reviews with copious amounts of detail about the production, the people behind them and the social context. It will have you scribbling titles for later viewing. This has been a highly influential volume, as the number of made for television films being released on Blu-Ray now will attest.”
   
   Follow The History of Television: Masters & Methods on Twitch

   Follow Amanda Reyes on Twitter

   Cluck
   “OK, this is not a great book but it’s an example of how completely gullible I am when I see an interesting or unusual film book on a shelf. This is a supposedly comprehensive (it’s not really) guide to chickens on film. I will admit that I have never sat up all night and read this one by candlelight, though I will admit to leafing through it occasionally and chuckling.”
   
   

9. AFS’ History Of Television’s Aaron Spelling Miniseries Starts 1/31, Here’s How To Tune In

   January 28, 2022 3:47 pm Leave a Comment

    

   For many years we have been offering a bimonthly History Of Television screening series at AFS. There we have screened television episodes and provided historical and critical insight into the filmmaking and cultural aspects of the work.

   At first, the History Of Television series took place in our on-site screening room, then we moved it to an actual television studio, now, as it returns for the first time since the initial COVID-19 shutdown, we will begin offering the programs as actual television shows.

   The first event happens Monday 1/31 at 7pm Central. Join us one of three ways.

   1. Tune in to Austin Public Channel 10, either on your Time Warner-equipped cable television or on Austin Public’s web stream here.
   2. Tune into AFS’ YouTube channel for the live stream.
   3. Watch on Twitch here.

   Now the cool part. Over the course of the next six months we will be joined by author and television historian Amanda Reyes to celebrate the work of native Texan film producer Aaron Spelling, who changed the way television operated beginning in the 1960s. We will showcase original Spelling programs in each episode with critical and historical commentary.

   The first installment of the Spelling series will focus on his early career. We will play two episodes of Spelling-created and produced series with introductions and interstitial commentary about Spelling, his collaborators and the television production environment at the time these were made.

   First up: BURKE’S LAW: “Who Killed Purity Mather?” (original airing 12/6/63). In this episode, scripted by Harlan Ellison, our hero, independently wealthy District Attorney Amos Burke, tries to unravel the apparent murder of bohemian witch Purity Mather by hunting down the fellow members of her coven. The guest stars are typically Spelling: Telly Savalas, Wally Cox, Charlie Ruggles, Janet Blair, and Gloria Swanson, as a particularly eccentric black-arts practitioner.

   Also: HONEY WEST: “The Gray Lady” (original airing 12/10/65). This short-lived and rather silly BURKE’S LAW spinoff starred Anne Francis as a sexy private-eye who was an expert shot and a master of the martial arts. This episode, written by future COLUMBO creators Richard Levinson and William Link, is a Hollywood-set jewelry caper with guest stars Cesar Danova, Nancy Kovack and Kevin McCarthy.

   About Amanda Reyes: Classic TV lover, slasher fanatic, soap opera addict, podcaster, and stuffed animal collector. Editor of Are You in the House Alone? A TV Movie Compendium: 1964-1999. Listen to Amanda’s podcast Made For TV Mayhem wherever you find your podcasts or click here.

   Here’s a look ahead to February’s installment, focusing on Spellings Made For Television movie work. Tune in!

10. Read This! Andrew Bujalski Talks The Coca-Cola Kid – Jan 29 & 31 at the AFS Cinema

    January 25, 2022 5:32 pm Leave a Comment

    
    On January 29 and 31, AFS presents THE COCA-COLA KID in 35mm as part of its World Cinema Classics series. Very few could have seen this raucous but insightful comedy coming from transgressive Serbian master Dušan Makavejev. Eric Roberts inhabits the part—an Atlanta-based marketing wiz given the assignment to prop up slow Coca Cola sales in the interior of Australia—with great gusto and massive entertainment value. Released in 1985, the film has very slowly gained cult status thanks in large part to Roberts’ gonzo performance and Makavejev’s go-for-broke approach to the subject matter.

    Makavejev’s former student and great admirer of his work filmmaker Andrew Bujalski (COMPUTER CHESS, SUPPORT THE GIRLS) will join us to introduce and discuss the film on January 29. Ahead of the screenings, we asked Bujalski to share his thoughts on time with Makavejev.

    What has been your experience with the films of Dušan Makavejev?

    I think I’d seen THE COCA-COLA KID on the video store shelf and been intrigued by it, but didn’t really know anything about Dušan until I had the extraordinary good fortune to take his production class in college. All of the professors in those hallways seemed like living legends to us, in part I guess because many of them were—and this stooped over Eastern European madman, who seemed somehow simultaneously a lumbering bear and a mischievous kid, was a huge presence. Some of his films screened on campus back then, others I caught up to later in life, and others yet I still hope to encounter. W.R.: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM probably has the greatest reputation, and it does seem to me one of the great moments of alchemy in cinema history—I suspect it’s just as mind-blowing and unique today as it was 50 years ago, because it’s totally unrepeatable. INNOCENCE UNPROTECTED and MONTENEGRO also knocked my socks off….

    What has been your experience with Makavejev himself?

    As an artist and as a person he had a deep affinity for the anarchic, which as you might imagine made him a rather divisive teacher. Students who craved structure and coherent directives tended to be flummoxed and frustrated in his class. And inevitably I think the students he liked personally had better experiences in the class than the ones he found less interesting. But he was deeply engaged with teaching and generally quite sweet—I adored him, even as I was surely intimidated, and had a blast in his class. When I read some of his writing today it occurs to me that a huge chunk of what I think of as “my” filmmaking philosophy is cribbed wholesale from him…Certainly he was doing nothing to set us on the path to “professional” careers, he was happy for us to risk looking incompetent so long as we looked alive, and that was intoxicating for me.

    The last time I saw him in person was shortly after I’d moved to Austin in my early 20s—he was participating in some kind of conference with other Serbian artists and dissidents at UT, and somehow, he knew my address and sent a student to come retrieve me. I remember sitting in my living room trying to figure out how to do my taxes—not sure why that detail sticks—when suddenly there was a young woman standing at my screen door telling me that Makavejev was in Austin, he wanted to see me, and she would lead me to him. What a delightful day. I met some students then that I’m still friends with, and somehow ended the night sitting next to Dušan at a party full of Serbian exiles three times my age having heated political and aesthetic debates with each other that I could not understand a word of, riveted.

    THE COCA-COLA KID is very different from Makavejev’s other films. Can you identify as a filmmaker with taking big chances and leaving your comfort zone?

    Y’know, back in college I think we all considered THE COCA-COLA KID to be his “sell out” movie, the one with Hollywood performers in it, the one that had been a great commercial success, and the one that was clearly less outwardly provocative and transgressive than, say, SWEET MOVIE with all its writhing, chocolate-covered orgies, etc. But I happened to see it again a couple years ago—one of the last things I saw on a screen before the Covid lockdown—and couldn’t believe how fucking wild it was. I’m not sure if it speaks to how rigid commercial cinema has become since then, but it’s really hard to believe that it was within my lifetime that a movie this delightfully bananas could have been an actual hit, or considered “sell out” in any way shape or form. Certainly, there are aspects of the production that would have been unusual for Dušan, but frankly I don’t know if he had a “comfort zone” per se, I have to believe that he was happiest when things were teetering right on the verge of chaos anyhow, and certainly the resulting movie seems entirely, unmistakably his own. It’s not like a studio director sneaking in the occasional personal touch—it’s top to bottom Makavejev.

    How does THE COCA-COLA KID tie in, say, W.R. or SWEET MOVIE? Are the similarities as profound as the differences would seem to be?

    Of course. Makavejev was a brilliant dude with a unique mind. Some of the outward signifiers of his supposedly “purer” films may be missing, but the anarchic joy is present and uncut.

    How would you describe THE COCA-COLA KID to someone who has never seen it before?

    Eh, there’s no preparing anyone for it. Just crack open a refreshing Coke and strap yourself in?

    
    THE COCA-COLA KID screens January 29 and 31 at the AFS Cinema. Get tickets here.

     

     

     

11. AFS Presents Works by Bill Morrison for its Winter 2022 Essential Cinema – Starts Jan 20

    January 18, 2022 9:39 am Leave a Comment

    This January and February AFS presents works by renowned contemporary American filmmaker Bill Morrison for its Essential Cinema program. His masterful and critically acclaimed works, constructed from mostly decaying nitrate films, are achieved through extensive archival research as well as close collaborations with some of the world’s most innovative contemporary composers, including William Basinski, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, Philip Glass, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Bill Frisell, and David Lang.

    Our series begins with the opening night presentation of DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME on January 20 at 7:30 PM. Bill Morrison will join us along with Craig Campbell, Associate Professor of Anthropology at The University of Texas at Austin, to introduce the film and a Q&A afterwards. See the full line-up and get tickets here.

    We asked Professor Campbell to provide some context ahead of the series. Here he shares his thoughts on damage, ruin, and decay in relation to the photographic image and the work of Bill Morrison:

    The upcoming series of events focused on the filmmaker Bill Morrison is an opportunity to explore a remarkable and unique body of work. Curated by Donato Loia, 2020-2021 Curatorial Fellow at the Visual Arts Center (VAC), we are invited not only to view Morrison’s films and hear him introduce and talk about them during this screening series at the Austin Film Society, but also to encounter the associated exhibition Bill Morrison: Cycles & Loops installed in the VAC gallery and listen to the original score of The Great Floor, a collaboration between Morrison and legendary musician Bill Frisell, which will be presented at the Texas Performing Arts on January 21. From the cinema to the gallery and concert hall, this curated set of events is unlike any I have been involved in before.

    As an anthropologist and scholar of archival photography, I have been asked to introduce the film DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME on January 20. What fascinates me about Morrison’s work with found footage in DECASIA and DAWSON CITY is the way that he uses damaged images to animate our relationship to the past and in doing so, exposes the double fictions of actors acting in a world that no longer exists, that has become to us unfamiliar and strange.

    Visible damage on the surface of a photographic image enacts two fascinating processes: it produces both a radical clarification and a temporal convolution. As with all representations there is a distance between that which once was and what we see now. Looking at a photograph, particularly an old one, I am struck by the absolute particularity of a moment that has been captured. I rush past the representational construct to the thing itself. This photographic encounter, of the camera and the world that stands before it forces itself to the front of my attention. I’m not thinking about the cuts or manipulations but of the piercing eyes, the beautiful motion of the horse, the bodies of the men walking towards me, the curious gestures and gazes looking through the camera, unknowingly across a hundred years to me, here, now. Yet this is complicated when I look at an image that is evidently marked by damage and decay, by ruin.

    What follows is an excerpt from an essay I wrote in 2016 titled “The Ephemerality of Surfaces: Damage and Manipulation in the Photographic Image”:

    The impossible concealment of the real punctures surface.  For example, breaking the fourth wall in theatre effectively reinforces the reality of the everyday by naturalizing its difference: “this is real, this looking at you is the real; the stuff on stage is fiction.” This willing and playful suspension of disbelief in the fantasy of the theatrical production can be repeated through a similar operation in photography.  The peeling emulsion on the film is a failed masking, where the artifice of the photograph is too evident. The 2002 collage and found footage film DECASIA by Bill Morrison places damaged film footage at the center of his experimental project.  Like Peter Delpeut’s 1990 LYRICAL NITRATE, DECASIA foregrounds the “death of film in motion by using film footage damaged by water, dryness, fungi, discoloration, celluloid acetate degradation or nitrate decomposition” (Cramaaer 2009: 371).  The structure of concealment and disclosure that surrounds the truth claims of the documentary photograph is called out through the materiality of damage.
    Still from DECASIA 

    The image itself is no less easily secured than its surface.  The world inscribed as the photograph becomes murky on the perimeter of the negative.  Before being lost to the edge of emulsion the image is often swollen, misshapen, deformed and tortured. Such evidence of material process is typically effaced through active cropping and (later in the technological biography of photography) tighter mechanics so that now a hard edge is natural to the photograph and edge effects are not implicit in the production of the image but added after the fact. How does all this signify?  What is the semiotic life of damage, decay, and manipulation?  Michael Pierson argues that collage films like those of Morrison and Delpeut draw “spectators to an affective realization of the lived reality of the past” (2009: 19).  More than that, just as the age of an image is signaled by the medium (consider for example black and white and sepia photographs) the evidence of the material life of an image can be signaled by the accretion of patina.

    In the past twenty years electronic images in conjunction with a ubiquitous and globalized internet infrastructure have led to new post-institutional image archives.  These are de-centered archives that are no longer defined around the consignation of artifacts to a particular locale but rather by the surface of the individual images that are constantly forming and re-forming in diffuse relational constellations both on and off the internet.  Archival photographs have traditionally been administered by sanctioned gatekeepers—archivists, curators, and historians—whose function, beyond controlling who can see the images, is to interpret them and to generate meaning from them. The instability of images as signifiers of anything other than the everyday is highlighted when they are released from the rarified environment of museums and archives.  This is the contemporary cultural scene where formerly circumscribed images are mobilized through digital proliferation.

    The myth of the photographic copy is that it returns the same thing in each iteration.  The sensuously persuasive evidence of this masks the more significant point: that of image-encounter. This image differs from that for its relational triangulations; its referential ecology.  To insist on this radical materiality is to insist on a recalibration of our tools for looking at and writing about the mediated world.  I wonder if damaged photographs disrupt the easy path of representation. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett expresses anxiety over the totalizing discourse surrounding representation and its stubborn obsession with the distance between the real and the representation.  She appropriates the term mediation to side-step and keep a curious and analytical spark alive. Quoting Jeffrey Shandler, she writes: “we are interested in ‘the relations among creators of a mediation, its medium and genre, its audience, its critics and epiphenomena, its history of remediation, as well as the form and content of the media work itself’” (Hirsch et al. 2005: 1500). For Kirshenblatt-Gimblett the complexity of human life necessitates intellectual objects that don’t either pretend to exhaust their referent or get irreparably mired in their failure to represent.

    What is so exciting about Morrison’s films is that they do not fetishize damage. Rather they dwell in it. They embrace the ruin and play it in the foreground as a technique that complicates the fabulations of belief. This both signals the materiality of film: the death of film in motion and the experience of visual encounter that has the capacity to draw the viewer into an affective realization of the lived reality of the past.

    References Cited.

    Cammaer, Gerda J. 2009. “Film Reviews: Lyrical Nitrate. Directed by Peter Delpeut, The Netherlands 1990. Decasia. Directed by Bill Morrison, USA 2002.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 15, no. 3 (August 1, 2009): 371–73.

    Campbell, Craig. 2016. “The Ephemerality of Surfaces: Damage and Manipulation in the Photographic Image” In Materialities. Curated by Kyler Zeleny. TVC#47. London, UK and Taipei, Taiwan: The Velvet Cell. 57-89.

    Delpeut, Peter. 1991. Lyrical Nitrate. Documentary.

    Hirsch, Marianne, Kishenblatt-Gimblett Barabara, and Taylor Diana. “What’s Wrong with These Terms? A Conversation with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Diana Taylor.” PMLA. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 120, no. 5 (2005): 1497-1508.

    Pierson, Michele. 2009. “Avant-Garde Re-Enactment: ‘World Mirror Cinema, Decasia’, and ‘The Heart of the World.’” Cinema Journal 49 (1): 1–19.

     

12. Meet the 2021 AFS Grant for Short Films Recipients

    December 20, 2021 11:42 am Leave a Comment

    
    2021 AFS Grant for Shorts recipients:
    1: Déjà Cresencia Berhardt, Edwin Oliva, Katy McCarthy
    2: Megan “Megz” Trufant Tillman, Sharon Arteaga, Tay Mansmann
    3: Paloma Martinez, Abby Ellis, Iris Diaz, Alejandra Aragón

    This week, AFS announces the recipients of the 2021 AFS Grant for Short Films. Eight projects by ten director applicants were selected for awards: seven narrative shorts and one documentary short were selected from 125 applicants. Seven of the ten directors will be receiving grants from AFS for the first time. Read on below to find out more about all of the filmmakers and their short films.

    Central to our filmmaker support programs, 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. AFS Grant selections are made by a panel of industry experts who reside outside of the state of Texas and are integral in selecting exciting new talent. Participants in this year’s panel process included José Rodriguez, programmer at Tribeca, Amanda McBaine, documentary filmmaker and producer (BOYS STATE, MAYOR PETE, THE OVERNIGHTERS), and Cecilia Mejia, producer (YELLOW ROSE, CALL HER GANDA, and LINGUA FRANCA).

    Of this year’s short film projects, Cecilia Mejia said, “It was really incredible to see the depth of stories and content that came through. It was difficult to really narrow down the list because there was so much talent and everyone deserved to be recognized in some way. I’m inspired by these storytellers and really in awe of how supportive AFS is of independent film.”

    
    A HAUNTING ACROSS THE GALAXY

    Directed by Edwin Oliva
    
    A senior at The University of Texas at Austin studying filmmaking, Edwin Oliva has a passion for visual storytelling with a soft spot for older cheesy B-movies and sci-fi flicks. In his spare time, he produces various short-films for his Youtube channel ‘SA Movie Geeks,’ including a recent documentary short that examined how a local theater in Yoakum, Texas, was being impacted by the pandemic in 2020. The short film was spread throughout the town via social media garnering popularity. Oliva is the recipient of the 2021 Harrison McClure Endowed Film Fund, which awards cash funds to one undergraduate student project as a part of the AFS Grant for short films. Funds from this year’s grant will help him complete his new narrative short film, A HAUNTING ACROSS THE GALAXY, the story of Arkie, an alien archeologist, on a quest to retrieve a living souvenir from Earth but has trouble capturing an uncooperative ghost.

    

    
    THE FEAR THEY LEFT

    Directed by Paloma Martinez and Abby Ellis
    
    Paloma Martinez and Abby Ellis are the co-directors behind this new documentary short centered around the tragic story of 26-year-old Jovany Mercado, who was shot and killed during a mental health crisis on his own driveway by Ogden, Utah police. Reeling from the pain of his son’s death and fearing for the safety of his remaining family, Juan, Jovany’s father, turns their home into a digital fortress against the police. Martinez and Ellis are both established documentary filmmakers with award-winning projects and THE FEAR THEY LEFT is their first documentary project together.

    Paloma Martinez is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and educator from Houston. She first picked up a camera as a labor organizer in Texas where she worked to improve working conditions for corporate office janitors. Her short documentaries, ENFORCEMENT HOURS, CRISANTO STREET, and THE SHIFT have been distributed in The New York Times Op-Docs, The Guardian, and The Atlantic and screened at top festivals including SXSW and AFI Docs.

    Abby Ellis is an award-winning journalist, documentary producer, director and editor. She is currently the Filmmaker-in-Residence at FRONTLINE, where she is completing SHOTS FIRED (Fall 2021), her third film for the outlet. Previously, she wrote, produced and directed FLINT’S DEADLY WATER, about Flint’s lead poisoning crisis. The film was recognized by the Scripps Howard Foundation with the Jack R. Howard Award for Broadcast and was nominated for an Emmy, a Peabody, and was a finalist for both the IRE awards and Livingston awards.

    

    IN TOW

    Directed by Sharon Arteaga

    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 new narrative short film project IN TOW, 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. She is a recipient of an AFS Grant for short film PLANE PRETEND and part of the directing team who just received a 2021 AFS Grant for Feature Films for new narrative feature, THE UNTITLED TEXAS LATINA PROJECT. Support from this year’s grant will help her see IN TOW—about a self-involved teen and her overworked, single mom who come to a head with their differences as their mobile home is repossessed with them inside of it—through to completion.

    
    LAST HAWAIIAN SUGAR

    Directed by Déjà Cresencia Berhardt

    Déjà Cresencia Berhardt is an Austin-based filmmaker raised in Maui and in Bali where her family now lives. She draws upon her diverse heritage, finding inspiration to tell both narrative and documentary stories that open hearts and connect people to their global and indigenous communities. Her films have screened in festivals worldwide and won numerous awards, but more importantly, catapulted humanitarian work into the forefront of the global public eye. Bernhardt’s feature documentary, GUERILLA MIDWIFE, shines a light on the work of her mother, Ibu Robin Lim. It propelled Lim to win CNN’s ‘Hero of the Year’ and use the opportunity to bring efforts to underserved and underrepresented communities. Bernhardt is currently in post-production with her new project LAST HAWAIIAN SUGAR, a prelude narrative short for her feature HALF ANGELS, named one of the top ten best unproduced screenplays by Coalition for Asian Pacifics in Entertainment and The Black List. Support from this year’s grant will help her complete the short about 12-year-old Nua, who makes peace with the mixed emotions she has about the land she lives on when she learns the sugar plantation she calls home will be closed forever.
    

    
    OBSCURA

    Directed by Tay Mansmann

    Tay Mansmann (he/they) is a queer storyteller and advocate from Devon, Pennsylvania. They aim to foster connection and mindfulness through their work, to draw us back to nature, and to expand representation in front of and behind the camera. He is a student of magical realism and draws inspiration from a lineage of subversive thinkers and everyday queerdos. Mansmann holds a BA in English and Film & Media Studies from Georgetown University, and is currently completing their MFA at UT Austin for Film Production. He received a 2021 AFS Grant for his new narrative short film OBSCURA—after discovering a surreal camera obscura built into an abandoned crop house, two queers at a crossroads in their relationship must overcome projections of their deepest desires and fears made manifest by their perverted scarecrow doppelgangers.

    

    THE VIOLINIST

    Directed by Katy McCarthy

    An artist, filmmaker, and educator based in Austin, Katy McCarthy films explore psychology and feminist history from a surrealist perspective, including her recent shorts THE POSERS, MARY TODD LINCOLN OR WHY I COULDN’T FINISH THE VIDEO IN TIME, and SUCH LONELY COUNTRY. Her films have been screened at The Every Woman Biennial Film Festival, Boulevard Film Festival, CUNY Film Festival, NurtureART’s Single Channel: Video Art Festival, and at numerous galleries and museums. Support from this year’s grant will help her complete her new narrative short, THE VIOLINIST, about a conservative Texas state senator who struggles with his anti-abortion stance after being kidnapped and surgically connected to a violinist whom he must keep alive with his own body for nine months.

    little trumpet
    

    Directed by Megan “Megz” Trufant Tillman

    Megan “Megz” Trufant Tillman is a writer-creative-musician whose work explores her Southern roots and centers on Black life and culture as well as the Black South. A Katrina baby hailing from New Orleans, she is a storyteller with more than just words. Her works include episodic pilot and runner-up in the 2019 New Orleans Film Festival Screenplay Competition for ALL FRONTS and her new narrative short film, little trumpet. Tillman currently serves as a creative director for various artistic projects—she is co-founder and member of jazz/neosoul/hip hop outfit Magna Carda, and founder and editor of Water, a Black literary arts magazine. She most recently served as script consultant and writer on the music video for Oscar-winning song “Fight For You” by H.E.R. (title song for 2021’s JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH) and Amazon’s H.E.R. Prime Day episode. She received a 2021 AFS Grant for little trumpet, which centers on a nine-year-old loner who wants his brother to teach him to play the trumpet…in the 7th Ward of New Orleans, where that is not so simple.

    SKATAS

    Directed by Iris Diaz and Alejandra Aragón
    
    2021 AFS Grant recipient SKATAS is a new narrative short film by prolific artists and filmmakers Iris Diaz and Alejandra Aragón, both from Ciudad Juárez, México. The film centers on two friends searching for a place to skate in a city that is not designed for skateboard wheels nor their bodies or dreams.

    Iris Diaz is an audiovisual and digital artist born in El Paso and raised in Ciudad Juárez. She has developed as an artist mainly on the Mexican side of the border and has been part of several group exhibitions including “Sin Línea” for “The Wrong” at the 2015 Digital Art Biennial and the “Conservatory of Women Photographers on the Border,” held at the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez in 2019. Diaz works mostly works with video, photography, drawing and digital art, frequently mixing them with arte povera and recycled art. Her work deals with topics such as everyday life, memory, loneliness, deterioration, home, motherhood, among others; sometimes approaching them from the absurd.

    A past AFS Grant recipient, Alejandra Aragón is a multidisciplinary artist from Ciudad Juárez, México. As a photographer, she participated in the Photographic Production Seminar of the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City in 2017 and was a member of the 2020 World Press Photo’s Joop Swart Masterclass. As a filmmaker her first documentary LAS NOCHES INVISIBILES was part of the “Coordinates” program of the 2018 Ambulante Film Festival. In 2019, she received support from AFS for her documentary short DISRUPTED BOARDERS. Since 2021, the film has screened at festivals across the U.S., including the Cleveland International Film Festival, Philadelphia Film Festival, Cine Las Americas, and the New Orleans Film Festival.