David Wain is perhaps best known for directing the cult classic Wet Hot American Summer and working on the short-lived Comedy Central series Stella--both of which, Wain didn’t mind telling us, were “financial disasters.” (Released in 2001, Wet Hot American Summer just managed to turn a profit this year, through DVD sales.) Wain was in town to promote his Paul Rudd-Sean William Scott comedy Role Models.

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still from Synecdoche, New York AFF Presents: Synecdoche, New YorkTuesday, October 21Paramount Theater (713 Congress Avenue)7:30pm; $9 30 mins. prior to show; Badge & AFF Film Pass holders have priority[info]Charlie Kaufman exists on this earth to mess with your mind. His directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York, will screen at the Austin Film Fest tonight, with the famously media-shy writer in attendance. Our advice? You may as well see it Tuesday, because you're going to need...

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Still from Nutkin’s Last Stand AFF Shorts 10, feat. Nutkin’s Last StandTuesday,October 21Dobie Theatre (2025 Guadalupe)6pm[info]It’s only 18 minutes, but Nutkin's Last Stand manages to pack a bit of a punch. The citizens of a Northern England town, in an attempt to save the native Red Squirrels, set out to eliminate the American Gray Squirrels that seem to be taking over and spreading a virus that the Reds are not equipped to fight. The film...

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Road to Tlacotepec follows Austin director Brendt Mader around as he travels in the footsteps of his father, a well-known photographer and photojournalist, whose recent death leaves a family in traction. In an effort to connect with his father's past, Mader embarks on a trip to a small Mexican village where his father and mother spent time in their young, married lives.

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Creepy is a good word to describe this tale of two twin sisters with manically curly red hair, who never speak except to each other, and how far they’ll go to realize their bizarre dreams. The film follows the sisters from their stay in a mental institution onto their new life in a halfway house. How they react to the outside world while maintaining the bizarre dependence on each other makes for an interesting character study.

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The Austin Film Festival is officially on (we're headed over to the late night reception now!), and this year you can keep tabs on our festival adventures through the relatively new @AustinistFilm Twitter account. Keep an especially close eye this weekend, when we're likely to be really drunk and sassy. Stay digital friends with us after the fest is over, and we'll keep you up to date on Austin film news, events, tickets and gossip....

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In what might be called Waking Life meets Rain Man, Bob Sabiston, the braintrust behind Linklater's two animated films (and those Charles Schwab commercials), brings beautiful backgrounds, and another insightful, revelatory use of filmic animation. The premise is the documenting of a road trip to Six Flags with Ryan Powell, who is autistic. This is the latest in a series of trips the pair has taken (along with a group of friends).

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Hold on to your high waters, Napoleon Dynamite. There’s a new weirdo in town. We’re talking about Ethan, the protagonist in this quirky comedy about a high school kid who can’t seem to figure out how to talk to Madison, the girl of his dreams. Or any girl, really. This charming feature was written and directed by Seth Packard, who also stars, and he does a bang-up job of maintaining a whimsical sense of humor reminiscent of such insane (and beloved) teen flicks as Better Off Dead . Ethan gets falsely accused of causing some trouble and ends up getting shipped off to stay with his even more maladjusted cousins in California. How will he be able to survive there, and what will happen when he returns home to woo Madison?

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What is it about summer camp movies that makes us so jealous our parents never sent us off for a few weeks of minimally-supervised, life-affirming fun? The films we’ve seen always seem to be filled with mischief, merriment and near-miracles – food fights hilariously erupt, unlikely friendships are forged and even the nerdiest of nerds manage to get kissed for the first time.

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If there's one documentary we recommend seeing during this year's Austin Film Festival, it's Eric Bricker's Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman, a fascinating, beautifully realized portrait of famed architectural photographer Julius Shulman. Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, Visual Acoustics explores Shulman's life and work through interviews, animation, archival footage and heaps of gorgeous photographs. Featuring conversations with architect Frank Gehry, designer Tom Ford, artist Ed Ruscha, publisher Benedikt Taschen and a host of notable design-o-philes, the film is an intimate portrait of an extraordinary talent.

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This afternoon, the good folks at the Austin Film Festival announced Rock-afire Explosion as the first of two "TBA" titles slated for this year's festival (second if you count the very funny Role Models, which was announced fairly late in the game).Rock-afire Explosion chronicles the resurgence of the titular animatronic band who "broke up" in the early 90s when Showbiz Pizza, the restaurant chain that employed* them, was pretty much absorbed by Chuck E. Cheese's. Most hardcore Explosion fans had figured the band for dead, until the internet brought them back to life last year via YouTube's magic, star-making powers.

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Zack Galifanakis goes "Good Will Hunting" in a dystopian satire that critiques our country's obsession with material goods and 8 to 5 corporatism. Yes, this Zach Galifianakis. The film is shot in dark color tones, replicating George Washington Winsterhammerman's (Galifianakis) dreary job as a "visioneer," which requires him to wear strange glasses and sit at a desk, though we never discover exactly what his job entails. Drama arises when it's learned that the team's missing member exploded. Not in a sort of espionage, car bomb, way, but spontaneous combustion due to existential crisis.

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Just when you think perfectly blonde, perfectly nice, perfectly married Olive and Dax are about to get on your nerves with all their perfect perfectness, they start acting like normal, insecure people and begin to screw each other over.

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Grocery stores are the great equalizer—pretty much every one in America frequents one, be they monolithic or modest. And after you have purchased your snacks and sundries, there is generally one question that remains: do you want to carry your wares home in paper or plastic? Granted, in Austin the swing is towards "neither" with our cloth bag revolution, but across the country you will find dutiful baggers, sackers, or whatever you choose to call them, packing up jars, cans and bread, hopefully with the later after the former. Sounds like the stuff of legend, right? You wouldn't think so, but in the Austin Film Festival documentary feature Paper or Plastic?, those disregarded courtesy clerks finally get their moment in the sun.

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Though most people now equate "New Zealand film" with Lord of the Rings, the Kiwis have always done drama right. Jane Campion's The Piano, Niki Caro's Whale Rider and Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures all spring to mind as standout New Zealand-made features. And this year, the Austin Film Festival will offer a first look at another strong NZ drama, The Map Reader.

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The 15th annual Austin Film Festival is right around the corner (October 16th - 23rd!), and organizers are looking for a whole bunch of film-lovin' volunteers to help make it happen. Volunteers are needed in various capacities both before and during the fest. It's a great chance to gain event management experience, and it even counts towards any community service hours you might need to earn (hopefully for school). If you're interested, you'll need to...

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Hurry up! Today is your last chance to get an Austin Film Festival badge at early-bird rates. If you're buying the fanciest badge (the Producers Badge), you can save yourself $65 by purchasing before midnight tonight. There are a number of badge options, all at varying price and access levels. And if you don't have the budget for a full-blown badge, you can purchase Film Passes for $42. They're available online, over the phone, at Waterloo Records and at Follett’s Intellectual Property (though service fees apply if you buy 'em in person).

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If you're one of the thousands of Austinites who DON'T work at an ice cream factory, we've got a great way for you to beat the Monday blahs: head out to the Cap City Comedy Club for the 3rd Annual Funniest Filmmaker in Austin contest, hosted by writer/comedian/filmmaker/handsome devil Matt Bearden.

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Heads up, film fans! The Austin Film Festival may still be several weeks away, but the reels of independent cinema are definitely in motion.

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This Thursday, the Austin Film Festival gives you a free (or cheapish) screening of the new doc "Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections." You probably guessed already that the "new math" referred to here is not some fancy-pants non-Euclidean geometry, but rather the way that election returns have gotten easier and easier for unscrupulous parties to screw around with.

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The 15th Annual Austin Film Festival is only a few months away, but you've still got one more day to submit your film for consideration. The "very late postmark deadline" is tomorrow, Tuesday July 15th. So you've got 24 hours to submit your film for consideration in one of six categories (Narrative Feature, Narrative Short, Narrative Student Short, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short, and Animated Short). The easiest (and cheapest) way is to submit over the...

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Sonic Youth has been getting a lot of attention lately, to the point where they're appearing in really weird places, like "Fresh Air" and stuff. This seems strange to us, since we treasured our cassette of "Goo" in ninth grade and certainly would never have thought of SY as NPR-approved Culture. Thankfully, the new documentary Sleeping Nights Awake is a bit different from these official sanctifications of Kim, Thurston, et al.

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Last August, as the Austin Film Festival was ramping up, we spoke to Austin-based filmmaker Don Swaynos about the creepy slash awesome animated commercials he'd produced (along with partner Cameron Petri) for the folks at AFF. But Don's commercials weren't the only work he had premiering at AFF '07. Along with pal Steve Metze, he presented a documentary feature called Year at Danger, a firsthand account of Metze's deployment as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

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This Sunday, as part of the Austin Film Festival's "Conversations in Film" series, Writer / Director / Actor / Producer Johnathon Schaech will appear at the Hyde Park Theatre for an intimate discussion about screenwriting.

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