Austin Film Society to Honor Michelle Rodriguez, Noah Hawley and Tim and Karrie League at the Texas Film Awards’ 25th Anniversary
Austin, TX – (January 29, 2025) Today the Austin Film Society (AFS) announced they will honor actor Michelle Rodriguez, star of the Fast & Furious franchise, Lost and Avatar, and Emmy-winning producer, director and screenwriter Noah Hawley, creator and director of FX’s Fargo and the upcoming Alien: Earth, at the 25th anniversary of the Texas Film Awards, to honor their significant contributions to the advancement of the Texas film and creative media industry. Alamo Drafthouse founders Tim League and Karrie League will also be inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame, celebrating the impact they have had on the independent film industry, especially within the Texas community.
The annual event brings together legends of cinema and television and inducts industry icons into the Texas Film Hall of Fame and will take place on Thursday, March 6, 2025, at Austin’s Distribution Hall.
The Texas Film Awards has a long tradition of featuring special guests as speakers and award presenters. This year, influential Texas filmmaker Robert Rodriguez will present Michelle Rodriguez with her award. The two collaborated together on films including Alita: Battle Angel, Machete Kills and Machete. Celebrated actor and producer Elijah Wood will attend the event to present Tim & Karrie League with their award. Other presenters will be announced at a later date.
Musician JaRon Marshall of the Grammy Award-winning band Black Pumas will lead the night’s musical entertainment.
Actress Michelle Rodriguez was first seen on screen in Girlfight, where she won the Independent Spirit Award and Gotham Award for Best Debut Performance. She has played the role of Letty Ortiz in the Fast & Furious franchise, which has grossed over $5 billion. Rodriguez also was seen in the Resident Evil franchise, Machete & Machete Kills, Lost, S.W.A.T., Avatar and Battle: Los Angeles. Rodriguez was born in San Antonio, TX.
Emmy-winning producer, director and screenwriter Noah Hawley is known for creating and writing the FX series Fargo and Legion. Hawley has also worked on the series Bones, The Unusuals and My Generation and is the writer and director of the film Lucy in the Sky, starring Natalie Portman and Jon Hamm. He is the creator and director of the upcoming highly-anticipated FX television series Alien: Earth, based on the iconic film franchise. The series stars Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Essie Davis, David Rysdahl, Samuel Blenkin and Adarsh Gourav and will premiere in Summer 2025. Hawley has resided in Austin, Texas, for over 15 years and runs his production banner 26 Keys out of the city. 26 Keys recently opened their new HQ offices in downtown Austin.
Tim & Karrie League are the co-founders of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, which first launched in Austin, Texas, in 1997, and has since grown to dozens of theaters nationwide. They are co-founders of Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the United States, held annually at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, Texas. In 2017, Tim co-founded distribution and production company Neon with entertainment executive Tom Quinn. They have released films including Parasite and I, Tonya, winning several Oscars.
Previous inductees to the Texas Film Hall of Fame have included Carol Burnett, Matthew McConaughey, Willie Nelson, Ethan Hawke, Renée Zellweger, Luke Wilson, Sissy Spacek, Glen Powell, Shirley MacLaine, Forest Whitaker, Paul Thomas Anderson, Farrah Fawcett, Jesse Plemons, Guillermo Del Toro and Margo Martindale.
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Tickets and tables available for purchase HERE.
This year’s honorary hosts of the Texas Film Awards are Odette & Dave Annable, Shana Feste & Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Rachel & Mike Jackson and Jamie-Lynn Sigler & Cutter Dykstra. The 2025 co-chairs Sherri & Travis West and Tracey & Bill Marshall. This year’s 2025 TFA committee is Tavia & John Conkling, Julie & Jeff Jumonville, Amber & Al Koehler and Yuniedth & Jennings Steen.
About Michelle Rodriguez
Michelle Rodriguez can most recently be seen in Fast X reprising her role as “Letty” in the tenth installment of the Fast & Furious franchise. The franchise has grossed over $7 billion worldwide. Rodriguez also recently starred opposite Chris Pine in Paramount’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves from writer/directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. The film adaptation of Hasbro’s popular game opened on March 31 to a $40 million domestic debut.
Rodriguez can also be seen in Steve McQueen’s Widows alongside Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia Erivo. The film follows four widows (Davis, Rodriguez, Debicki and Erivo) after a police shootout that leaves four thieves dead during an explosive armed robbery attempt in Chicago. Notably, Rodriguez has collaborated with director Robert Rodriguez three times, for the films Alita: Battle Angel, Machete Kills and Machete.
Additional film credits include James Cameron’s Academy Award® nominated Avatar, Kelly Asbury’s Smurfs: The Lost Village, John Stockwell’s Blue Crush, Jonathan Liebesman’s Battle Los Angeles and Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Retribution. On the television side, Michelle is known for her portrayal of “Ana Lucia Cortez” in the ABC network Emmy® and Golden Globe® winning series Lost. Rodriguez scored her breakout role in Karyn Kusama’s Girlfight. Her portrayal of “Diana Guzman” garnered her awards such as an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance and an NBR award for Breakthrough Performance.
An avid video game fan, Michelle has also lent her voice to various popular games including Call of Duty: Black Ops II, True Crime: Streets of LA, Driver 3 and Halo 2. Born in Bexar County, Texas, she currently resides in Venice, California.
About Noah Hawley
Award-winning Noah Hawley is one of the most accomplished auteurs and versatile storytellers working in television, film and literature today. Hawley balances the art of telling cinematic, unforgettable character-driven stories that linger long after you’ve been immersed in them. Over the course of his more than 20-year career, Hawley’s work as a novelist, screenwriter, series creator, showrunner and director has garnered acclaim – winning an Emmy®, Writers Guild, PEN, Critics’ Choice, and Peabody Awards – and passionate response from audiences.
Most recently from Hawley and his 26 Keys production banner was the fifth chapter of his quintessential FX anthology series Fargo, for which he serves as executive producer, writer, showrunner and director. The five installments of the hit series have been nominated for 70 Primetime Emmy Awards and won seven. Since the series debuted in 2014, the casts have included Jon Hamm, Juno Temple, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jean Smart, Kirsten Dunst, Billy Bob Thornton, Chris Rock, Ewan McGregor, Carrie Coon, Jessie Buckley, Ben Whishaw, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Patrick Wilson and Martin Freeman. Hawley is also the visionary behind FX’s groundbreaking series Legion.
Upcoming from Hawley is Alien: Earth, the highly-anticipated original FX television series based on the iconic film franchise expected in Summer 2025. The expansive series will be set on Earth in 2120. The series stars Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Essie Davis, David Rysdahl, Samuel Blenkin and Adarsh Gourav.
As a best-selling author, Hawley has published six novels: A Conspiracy of Tall Men, Other People’s Weddings, The Punch, The Good Father, Before the Fall and Anthem, which garnered acclaim as one of the most ambitious novels of 2022. In addition, Fargo: This Is A True Story, a companion book to the first three seasons of the series and authored by Hawley, was released by Grand Central Publishing.
Additional recent projects from Hawley include his feature film directorial debut, Lucy in the Sky, which starred Natalie Portman, Jon Hamm, Dan Stevens, Zazie Beetz, Pearl Amanda Dickson, Tig Notaro and Ellen Burstyn. In Lucy in the Sky, Portman plays Lucy Cola, a strong woman whose determination and drive as an astronaut take her to space, where she’s deeply moved by the transcendent experience of seeing her life from afar. Back home as Lucy’s world suddenly feels too small, her connection with reality slowly unravels. It was released by Fox Searchlight.
Legion, Fargo and Alien: Earth are produced under Hawley’s Austin-based 26 Keys Productions banner, which opened their HQ offices in downtown Austin in 2024.
Hawley began his television career as a writer and producer on the hit series Bones in 2005, going on to create, executive produce and serve as showrunner for ABC’s My Generation (2009) and The Unusuals (2010).
About Tim and Karrie League
Tim League (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Founder and Executive Chairman) graduated from Rice University in 1992 with degrees in mechanical engineering and art/art history. After a two-year stint at Shell Oil in Bakersfield, California, Tim left engineering and opened up his first movie theater, the Tejon Theater, in east Bakersfield. When that theater closed after a short run in 1995, he and his wife Karrie loaded a truck with 200 seats, a projector, screen, and speakers and headed to Austin, Texas. They founded Alamo Drafthouse in 1997 where, as CEO for 23 years and now strategic advisor, League remains committed to providing creative programming and a zero tolerance policy for disruption during the theater experience. League also co-founded Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the United States, and NEON, a powerhouse in US film distribution with titles such as Parasite, Longlegs and Anora. League also co-founded the movie collectibles brand Mondo and more recently Mutant. League is currently poised to open his latest venture, Metro Cinema, a private cinema and dining experience in Chelsea, New York.
Karrie League graduated from Rice University with degrees in Biology and French. She left graduate school to co-found the Tejon, the Alamo Drafthouse, Mondo and Fantastic Fest and was responsible for most of the behind-the-scenes business functions of the theater until 2011. After stepping away from this role for a few years to be a full-time mom, she returned to the Alamo in 2017 to facilitate the creation of a Sustainability Task Force, dedicated to reducing the environmental footprint of the business. When COVID struck and the Alamo was bought by a distressed asset VC company, she turned her attention to the old Baker School building that she and Tim had bought in 2018 to house the Alamo administrative offices but which is now a multi-tenant office building, housing more than 20 different companies. She dedicates her time to managing the upkeep of the historic building while transforming neglected, weed-ridden lawn areas into gardens that feed and shelter birds, wildlife and pollinators.
About the Texas Film Awards
The Texas Film Hall of Fame—founded by Evan Smith and Louis Black in 2001—honors those who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of the Texas film and creative media industry. Now in its 25th year, the Texas Film Awards brings together legends of cinema and television and inducts industry icons into the Texas Film Hall of Fame. Proceeds from the unforgettable evening benefit the artistic and educational programs of the Austin Film Society, a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
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 supports filmmakers 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, special 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.
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