Interview:
Augustine Frizzell,
writer/director,
"Never Goin' Back"
Written and directed by Augustine Frizzell, the Texas-set stoner comedy Never Goin’ Back finds two Garland high school dropouts on a quest to earn enough money for a birthday weekend getaway to Galveston. An unfortunate series of events—some of them of their making, others due to no fault of their own—place the jobs of BFFs Angela and Jessie in jeopardy. But this does not stop them from holding onto to their dream of spending Jessie’s 17th birthday eating donuts on the beach. Teen Beach and The Fosters’ Maia Mitchell stars as Angela; Death Wish’s Camila Morrone stars as Jessie. The semi-autobiographical Never Goin’ Back represents the feature-film debut of Dallas-based writer/director Augustine Frizzell, who mined her own experiences as a high school dropout and a drug user in Garland. She previously directed a version of the film a few years ago, but dissatisfied with how it turned out, she reedited the footage into the short Minor Setback before embarking on making the film a second time. Never Goin’ Back, which premiered locally during this year’s SXSW Film Festival, opened Aug. 10 in Austin. A past Austin Film Society grant recipient, Augustine Frizzell will participate in a post-screening Q&A following the 7:45 p.m. Aug. 11 screening at the AFS Cinema. Frizzell, who is married to Pete’s Dragon and A Ghost Story’s director David Lowery, is currently directing episodes of the upcoming HBO series Euphoria and is developing the Home Alone-inspired comedy Stoned Alone, which Ryan Reynolds will produce. Frizzell, also an actress, will next appear in David Lowery’s upcoming drama The Old Man & the Gun, which reportedly will feature the last performance by Robert Redford before he retires from acting.
Aired: Aug. 9, 2018 Web sites: http://nevergoinback.com https://www.facebook.com/nevergoinbackmovie https://www.austinfilm.org/screening/never-goin-back/ |
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