Interview:
Emily Lock,
Creative Director,
Matt Dy,
Features Film Coordinator,
Austin Film Festival
The Austin Film Festival runs Oct. 23-30 at various venues. The Writers Conference runs Oct. 23-26. The festival opens Oct. 23 with the Sydney Sweeney fact-based boxing drama Christy with director David Michôd and Christy Martin in attendance. The festival closes Oct. 30 with the Amanda Seyfried musical drama The Testament of Ann Lee. The romantic dramedy Eternity, with star Elizabeth Olsen in attendance, screens Oct. 26 as the festival’s Centerpiece Film. Marquee titles include Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery with writer Rian Johnson in attendance; Train Dreams with co-writerdirector Clint Bentley and Austin-based co-writer Greg Kwedar in attendance; Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire with writer Austin Kolodney; Forelock with David Krumholtz in attendance; and the Tim Duncan documentary The Boy from St. Croix. Awards season hopefuls rounding out the Marquee titles include Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, the George Clooney-Adam Sandler two-hander Jay Kelly; Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, Jodie Foster’s French drama A Private Life, the Russell Crowe post-World War II courtroom drama Nuremberg; the Brendan Fraser comedy Rental Family, and Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value. Films with Austin ties include director Bryan Poyser’s dramedy Leads; the Adrianne Palicki comedies The Long Shot, Pickleheads, and Sell Out; and the documentaries Bite to Bite, Charley Crockett: $10 Cowboy, and The Inquisitor. Retrospective screenings include Se7en, with screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker in attendance, and A Knight’s Tale with writer/director Brian Helgeland in attendance. The Writers Conference, which runs Oct. 23-26, will feature individual and group conversations with this year’s Austin Film Festival honorees: the Bill Wittliff Award for Screenwriting recipient Rian Johnson; the Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award recipient Christopher McQuarrie; the Polly Platt Award for Producing recipient Christine Vachon; the Writers’ Writer Award recipients Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar; and the Outstanding Television Writer Award recipient Yvette Lee Bowser. The conference will feature conversations with, among others, Wicked and Wicked: For Good writers Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox; After the Hunt writer Nora Garrett; Sorry, Baby’s Eva Victor; Little Miss Sunshine writer Michael Arndt; American Born Chinese writer Kelvin Yu; Dear White People’s writer/director Justin Simien; Pixar Animation Studios writer/director Mike Jones; and TV creator and showrunner Liz Tigelaar; The conference also include conversations and panels devoted to Man on Fire, The Naked Gun reboot, The Nice Guys, Top Gun: Maverick, and the TV shows Abbott Elementary, All America, Dark Winds, Poker Face, Severance, and Silicon Valley. Machete co-writer and Seis Manos co-creator Álvaro Rodriguez will deliver the conference’s opening remarks; in keeping with tradition, Iron Man 3, The Nice Guys, and Play Dirty director Shane Black will deliver the annual closing remarks.
Aired: Oct. 8, 2025. Web site: https://austinfilmfestival.com/ |
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