EVENT: AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL AUSTIN FESTIVAL AT A GLANCE HONOREES Outstanding Television Writer › Norman Lear (1) Distinguished Screenwriter › Brian Helgeland (2) Extraordinary Contribution to Film and Acting › John Singleton (3) › Chris Cooper (4) FILM HIGHLIGHTS Opening night › “Legend” Closing night › “The Program” Centerpiece › “Burning Bodhi” HOT TICKET The Austin Film Festival will host the world premiere of “Burning Bodhi,” with Kaley Cuoco, left, as its centerpiece film. ences can get a glimpse of festival favorites like Todd Haynes’ “Carol,” Brian Helgeland’s “Legend” and Paolo Sorrentino’s “Youth,” as well as the world premiere of Matthew McDuffie’s “Burning Bodhi.” The likes of Norman Lear, John Singleton, Helgeland and Chris Cooper will be on hand to receive honors, as well as to conduct some of the 175 panels that will be presented during the first four days of the fest. Over eight days, the festival will Tipsheet WHAT: 22nd Austin Film Festival WHEN: Oct. 29- Nov. 5 WHERE: Austin, Texas WEB: austinfilm festival.com screen 180 films. Morgan emphasizes that keeping Austin weird is still very much part of the guiding philosophy, with the screenwriting-oriented panels driving the festival programming, rather than the other way around. “We have an interesting audience compared to a lot of other festivals,” she says. “We fill out 30-some-thousand movie seats, but the conference is a huge draw. And there are a lot of people who come to the festival for the conference who may not go to a single film. Because they’re in panels, networking, trying to get their next job. And that’s really what drives us. We don’t have a market. We’re nothing like Cannes or Toronto. We’re not at all like Sundance. We’re very much a place where the capital is people.” And appropriately for Austin, these events aren’t exactly black-tie affairs. “There’s a bar” — namely, the one in the Driskell Hotel lobby — “that tends to be a big hangout after the panels. Everybody goes to the bar, whether it’s the Coen brothers or Oliver Stone. You never know who you’re standing next to, because there isn’t another place to go. And that’s what people are really here to do, to meet like-minded people who can give them a leg up.” When Morgan started the festival, Austin still might as well have been the Wild West for many on the coastal industry hubs; SXSW had yet to add a film component, Fantastic Fest was a decade away, and as she remembers, “in California particularly, there was still the idea that Texans were all just crazy people with guns.” Focusing on screenwriting gave AFF an early identity, and Morgan was impressed at how well the experiment took. “We took a group of people who weren’t used to being invited to the party, which is the screenwriter, and we threw them all into a room together,” she says. “And you know, even all being members of the Writers Guild, none of them really knew each other, because they’re not bumping into each other all the time. They’re rewriting each other, but they’re not necessarily bumping into each other.” Key to maintaining that focus is the festival’s annual screenwriting competition, which drew 9,000 submissions this year. Recent years’ winners have parlayed the attention into jobs on the writing staffs of “Empire,” “Silicon Valley,” “Justified” and “Halt and Catch Fire.” Predictably, Morgan cites the explosion of aspiring TV writers as the biggest shift she’s seen in her years of reading submissions. The AFF recently added a TV pilot competition, and just this year, they’re bowing a scripted digital series competition. New this year: Global specialist insurer Hiscox is not only a fest sponsor but launching the Hiscox Courage Award, which recognizes the festival film and filmmaker that best represents courage, voted on by the audience. Considering the festival’s continued success and the preponderance of screenwriter-driven new media, Morgan says she’s surprised that no other festival has followed its lead. “If you want to hang out with the cool kids, the cool kids to me are the screenwriters,” she says. “And I just can’t imagine why anyone else hasn’t done it. But I hope they don’t. I hope we keep it ours.” PANELISTS Screenwriters Conference › Michael Arndt, Charles Burnett, John Ridley, Gary Ross, Shane Black, Jack Burditt, Peter Craig, Chad and Carey Hayes, Mark Heyman, Angela Kang, David Wain, Todd Kessler, Simon Kinberg, Jenny Lumet, Kelly Marcel, Jonathan Nolan, Nicole Perlman, Jason Reitman, Phil Rosenthal, Terry Rossio, Liz Tigelaar 1 2 3 4 LEAR: ROB LATOUR/REX SHUTTERSTOCK; HELGELAND: JAMES SHAW/REX SHUTTERSTOCK; SINGLETON: MATT BARON/BEI/REX SHUTTERSTOCK; COOPER: GREGORY PACE/BEI/REX SHUTTERSTOCK 92
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