Roxanne Wilson

Austin Film Festival, Colbie Caillat, and more: all in a week’s worth in Austin.

by roxanne on 10/31/09 at 9:44 pm

Austin never fails to remind us of its greatness! With the Austin Film Festival back for another year–last week got the stamp of approval.

Wednesday was the kick off of the The Austin Film Festival with the Film and Food Event benefiting the Young Filmmakers Program. Young Filmmakers is a free program offered to AISD students interested in film-making. The event featured food from a variety of fine dining restaurants in Austin set up a la Top Chef style. As the restaurants furiously plated, the attendees enjoyed tasting the morsels. I met an array of people as we discussed which tasting was “to die for.”

Top on the list and a surprise to all was the Carillion restaurant. Hands down THE best pork belly there-add to that their goat cheesecake. I highly recommend trying the goodness from this restaurant.
With the 2009 Food & Film, the festival officially began!

On day two of the festival the conference started. Most of the seminars featured top screenwriters, producers, and agents imparting advice on up and coming attendees in the industry.

With day two came party number two at Mohawk. It was more like an end of the day happy hour than a party–A chance to network. Networking was perhaps one of the biggest parts of the entire festival. The first film Serious Moonlight, staring Meg Ryan and directed by Cheryl Hines screened that night. I missed it—I had a Jazzercise class to teach. – That is the one thing about festivals/conferences in your hometown: Life doesn’t stop.

That night didn’t only belong to Austin Film Festival. Colbie Caillat and Mat Kearney were performing downtown at separate venues the same night!

I am a fan of both and actually interviewed Colbie that morning on 102.3 The River, so I really wanted to see them live. Which to see which to see? Ultimately I chose Colbie since I have seen Mat live in the past. Colbie played at Stubbs to a sold out crowd. I arrived in time to see her opener, Howie Day, who I love. And yes he sang Collide.

Colbie’s concert was sailing along like clockwork. By ten she was doing the fake encore thing—I so wish everyone would cut that out. Kudos to Ingrid Michaelson for cleverly mocking it at her concerts. I digress. So I left before Colbie sang Bubbly (someday I will understand why it is called that) and cruised over to the Mat Kearney concert. Mat had just began his concert at La Zona Rosa when I got there.

Colbie and Mat’s crowds were TOTALLY different. Colbie had a lot of college coeds, 40-something aged moms and 40-something aged couples with a sprinkling of women like me in their late 20s early 30s. Mat on the other hand drew a crowd of mid 20s to late 30s. I was the only thing the two concerts has in common. You could just feel the difference.

Friday came early. The festival’s annual BBQ was the highlight of the day. Word on the street was if you are going to only attend one Film Festival even, the BBQ was the one. I soon figured out why. I ended up sitting next a man, Paul Feig, who I soon found out that he created Freaks and Geeks (may it rest in Peace) and directs episodes of The Office. Nice.

As we were eating, Ron Howard entered the BBQ. No- Ron Howard entered and stood less than ten feet from my table at the BBQ. I have to admit, I appreciate the countless contributions Ron Howard has made in is profession – Opie, Richie Cunningham, and Apollo 13 just to name a few.

I was subtly trying to take pictures on my phone of him and tweet them without him noticing.

Soon people actually started asking him for pics. I didn’t want to be that girl. So I stood behind the Festival photographer and took a picture of him, thinking I might look more official with my blackberry phone taking a picture if I was standing next to a photographer with a professional camera and a huge lens.

HA! I told her what I was trying to do and she suggested I just ask him for a picture. No! I couldn’t. But between the photographer and the tweets I was getting simultaneously telling me to take a pic, I soon found myself standing in front of Ron Howard, shaking his hand and asking him for a picture. OH MYLANTA!

He was very generous and I got the pic!

BBQ done and done!

Next stop? The premiere of “Precious.” The Film Festival landed one of the most talked about movies out there right now. What I can tell you about the movie is that “Precious” stars Mo’Nique, Sheri Sheperd, and wait for it…Mariah Carey. Oprah and Tyler Perry were the executive producers. Other than that, I didn’t know much. I just knew that the buzz was Mariah redeemed herself with this performance.

I walked in excited about seeing the movie and walked out totally and utterly numb. I balled my eyes out repeatedly throughout the movie. Seriously there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. I am not going to tell you what it is about because I don’t want to ruin it, but please, go see it. I can only liken it to the impact that the movie Crash had on me.  I felt totally enlightened, shocked, and helpless. The difference is that with Precious there is hope in the end.  The movie comes out next month. Let me know what you think about it.

I needed to go see a comedy next. Seriously I was in the dumps. Fortunately a group of friends were nearby that I was able to meet up with and try and put the movie behind me for a while.

Austin Film Festival ended the night with a party at Ruth’s Chris. It was a little chaotic, truly. Nuff said.

Saturday could be renamed Space Saturday. Why, because the Apollo 13 was screened that night as the Festival retrospective. But hold that thought. Ron Howard, who was given an award by the Festival that afternoon for his contribution to filmmaking appeared in two panels that day talking about Storytelling. Steven Zaillian (Writer of Schindler’s List), and Mitch Hurwitz (creator of Arrested Development) joined Ron Howard for the panel, and the three captivated the audience with humor and salient points about film.  *And yes, Mitch confirmed that there will be an Arrested Development the movie.*

Directly following the panel was the retrospective of Apollo 13. It had been years since I saw the movie, and as Ron Howard put it when he introduced the movie, it is 14 years old, but “I think it still holds up.”

Real footage from the actual Apollo 13 was debuted right before the movie started. It was a sobering reminder that Apollo 13 wasn’t a thrilling novel, it truly happened. Another reminder was the fact that the real John Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) was in the audience along with, controllers who were in mission control during the Apollo 13 situation, writers and actors from the movie.

Sadly the film reel had some issues and stopped at least three times. #fail, but it kind went with the theme of the movie, repeated bad luck. All of the people I mentioned prior joined Ron Howard on stage after and shared stories and answered questions about the movie and the real mission.

Film writer Shane Black hosted a “wrap-up” party that night at the Belmont. I have to chuckle because already the festival had 2-3 kick off parties with another “wrap-up” party scheduled for later in the week. But hey, it made sense to everyone, so who am I to question.

The next morning the Film Festival hosted a brunch at Ranch 616 – yummy. Sunday was the final day for the conference part of the Festival with the films going strong through Thursday – and of course a few parties mixed in there as well.

Along the way I met passionate, impressive, conference goers. As someone who is not in the film industry, the best part of the festival was seeing others truly get inspired by what they heard from those further along in the field that they admired. Through be told- I was inspired too. Not to be a part of the film industry, but to keep doing what I am doing and strive to keep climbing, above all not letting anyone or anything discourage me along the way. That message, ran through the entire experience, and is something I took home with me.

Just another week in the ATX…

To find out more information about the Austin Film Festival go to http://www.austinfilmfestival.com/new/