Austin, Texas, is an American city with one of the largest and most diverse Creative communities in the United States, full of filmmakers, musicians, visual artists, dancers, etc. Thus, Austin is placed as the “Mecca” for American independent cinema, mostly thanks to the collective work of the Radio-Film-Television (RTF) department at the University of Texas, in Austin, the Austin Film Society, and a number of film festivals and other organizations and infrastructures that support the film community.
If, until the 70s, Austin was a city with underdeveloped resources and infrastructures (in terms of film directing and film production), that situation changed drastically in the following decades. The success of films like Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) helped to defined Austin as a regional center for a cinema community operating outside the Hollywood context. It was, however, the premiere and subsequent success of the cult film Slacker (1991), Richard Linklater’s first feature, that definitively placed Austin on the map, as a vital place for producing and directing contemporary independent and low-budget cinema. Linklater’s success was quickly followed by Robert Rodriguez’s (El Mariachi, Desperado), who began his career in cinema as a student at the RTF department, and was one of the figures who contributed to Austin’s continuous and consistent attraction for a myriad of filmmakers.
Just as important to this community’s vigor is the encouragement of the cinephile culture of the local audience. This stimulus is developed by programming multiple events, organizations and infrastructures. In that sense, Austin presents several internationally renowned film festivals, particularly the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival, the Austin Film Festival, the Cine las Americas Festival, the Fantastic Fest and, most of all, the famous South by Southwest Festival. Simultaneously, The Austin Film Society, founded by Linklater and some friends of his in 1985, contributed with frequent screenings of both classic and contemporary cinema.
The LEFFEST has organized a retrospective, displaying a selection of films by directors from the Austin community, specifically Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, Jeff Nichols, David Gordon Green (whose complete filmography will be shown during the festival), Geoff Marslett, Andrew Bujalski, Mike Judge and Louis Black. The latter, one of the founders of the Austin Film Society and the South by Southwest Festival, will be at the festival to present some rare films by several Austin directors.
RICHARD LINKLATER
Richard Linklater is now one of the great names in American cinema. He was born in Houston, Texas, he moved to Austin and decided to become a director. An autodidact filmmaker and screenwriter, with more than a dozen movies released, Richard Linklater began his career with Slacker (1991) and Dazed and Confused (1993), two cult films that asserted Austin’s importance as a place of contemporary independent low-budget film directing and production. Linklater is mostly known for his Before trilogy – Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013) — starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. His latest film, Boyhood (2014), which was filmed throughout 12 years, was nominated for 6 Oscars, winning one for Patricia Arquette, for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
DAVID GORDON GREEN
Director, Screenwriter, Producer, 1975, USA
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ROBERT RODRIGUEZ
Born in San Antonio, Texas, Robert Rodriguez (director, producer and owner of
Troublemaker Studios) is another main figures and key filmmakers in the Austin
film community. Rodriguez is known for his Mexico Trilogy (comprised of the
films El Mariachi, 1992, Desperado, 1995 and Once Upon a Time in
Mexico, 2003) and his Spy Kids franchise (2001-2011), as well as From Dusk til
Dawn (1996), Sin City (2005), Machete (2010) and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
(2014). He has worked with Quentin Tarantino often, both in From Dusk til Dawn
and Sin City (Tarantino was a “guest director” in a segment of the film), a
friendship which resulted in the Grindhouse
(2007) project, designed as a joint session with two films – Rodriguez directed
Planet Terror and Tarantino directed Death Proof, in the style of exploitation
B-movies.
JEFF NICHOLS
With only three films released – Shotgun Stories (2007), Take Shelter (2011) and Mud (2012) –, Jeff Nichols has already become one of the most interesting independent directors working not nly in Austin, but in the entire United States, and a constant presence at Sundance. While Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter represent a fortunate collaboration between the director and actor Michael Shannon, Mud marked his meeting with Matthew McConaughey, in a film that won the Palm d’Or in Cannes (2012).
ANDREW BUJALSKI
Andrew Bujalski, a filmmaker born in Boston, Massachusetts who moved to Austin, Texas, is arguably the “godfather of Mumblecore” (an independent film style characterized by the use of non-professional actors and naturalistic performances) and one of the figureheads within the new generation of directors working in Austin. Bujalski studied at Harvard University, with Chantal Akerman guiding his thesis. He began directing films in the early 2000s (Funny Ha Ha, 2002, Mutual Appreciation, 2003), with Beeswax and Computer Chess – his third and fourth independent films respectively – shot in Austin, Texas. His latest film is called Results (2015), an independent romantic comedy which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
GEOFF MARSLETT
Geoff Marslett is an American award-winning director, author, producer, animator and actor. Settles in Austin, Texas, Marslett has directed, among other projects, two successful feature films: Mars (2010), starring Mark Duplass and with a very particular style of animation, followed by Loves Her Gun (2013), as well as a segment (TV Room) in the tribute-remake Slacker 2011. He currently divides his time between Austin, Texas and Boulder, Colorado, and between his activity as Cinema Studies professor and other directing and screenwriting projects.
MIKE JUDGE
Mike Judge is an American actor, animator, screenwriter, producer, director, musician and illustrator. Although he works in Hollywood, nowadays, he keeps a home in Austin. In the 90s, he created the MTV animated series Beavis and Butt-head (1993-97, 2011) and King of the Hill (1997-2010). More recently, he co-created the television sitcom Silicon Valley (2014–). As a director, Judge directed Beavis and Butt-head Do America (1996), Office Space (1999), Idiocracy (2006) and Extract (2009). He has also known for his role as Donnagon Giggles in Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids franchise.