Austin Film Festival Is Live

On the eve of the launch of season 11 of On Story, its televised celebration of the art of the screenwriter, Austin Film Festival has announced an equally huge return. After a virtual year online, the festival will return in person this October for its 28th edition.

“We are live,” rejoiced AFF co-founder and executive director, and On Story producer, Barbara Morgan. She explained that, just like last year’s shift to a virtual realm, this year’s in-person festival was all about timing. In 2020, being in October and watching other festivals go online across the summer, she said, “We had the opportunity to learn from what other people were doing.” Now that festivals like New York’s Tribeca, Austin’s aGLIFF, and San Diego Comic-Con have announced in-person events for the upcoming summer and fall, “I feel like we’re fairly safe.”

The festival has also announced that Scott Frank, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning writer of The Queen’s Gambit, Logan, and Out of Sight, will receive the Bill Wittliff Award for screenwriting. In addition, the first draft of speakers includes Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Lost), Meg LeFauve (Inside Out), Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy), and Peter Craig, writer of the upcoming The Batman.

Before then, the highlights of the 2020 virtual event and new interviews arrive on PBS nationally with season 11 of the festival’s spinoff TV series. While AFF was founded in 1994, it added On Story as a show for Austin’s KLRU in 2011. Since then, it has added books, a radio show, and a web archive, and is now available in 80% of all markets through PBS.

Normally, the interviews are recorded in person during the live festival, and Morgan said she was “utterly fearful” that season 11 “was just going to be another Zoom call that’s translated to television.” Some episodes were shot in a studio in Los Angeles, under strict COVID-19 safety protocols, while others (such as the season opener with The Old Guard director Gina Prince-Bythewood) were recorded online. Morgan said she was surprised by how much better the final shows in both formats are than she expected, and how much they have retained the spirit of the regular seasons. “It’s still two different faces in two different rooms, but the warmth was still there.”

Moreover, the virtual one-off event also allowed the festival to finally land interviews with some names that have eluded them for the last few years, like Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn, and a reunion of City Slickers writing duo Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz. “We would have never gotten those guys live,” said Morgan. “They don’t travel, they don’t usually talk live, but they did the Zoom and it was great.”

However, after a virtual year, Morgan said she’s eager for the in-person festival experience and knows the fans are, too. She recalled that the overwhelming response in 2020 attendee feedback was, “We’re so amazed that you got so much together online, but we can’t wait for the live event.” That was something they heard in particular from the creatives who are at the core of the festival – writers. “We’re like summer camp for them,” Morgan said. “They want to have the opportunity to come out of their house and convene with people who have the same problems they do.”

On Story season 11 launches on PBS starting April 4.
The 28th Austin Film Festival runs Oct. 21-28. Details at www.austinfilmfestival.com.