Austin Film Festival to Honor Shōgun Writers

The writing and producing duo behind the critically acclaimed FX on Hulu smash Shōgun, Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, have been named as the latest honorees of the Austin Film Festival. However, they won’t be sharing an award.

During the 31st iteration of the festival and writers conference (running Oct. 24-31), Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin graduate Kondo will receive the New Voice Award.

She will join a roster of prior winners that includes Nikyatu Jusu (Nanny), Channing Godfrey Peoples (Miss Juneteenth), Catherine Reitman (Workin Moms'), and So Young Shelly Yo (Smoking Tigers) in receiving this honor which celebrates rising talents.

However, the husband-and-wife duo will need to clear two spaces in their display cabinet, as Marks will receive the 2024 Writer’s Writer Award, a new prize introduced at the festival last year. The first recipient was Cord Jefferson, whose career trajectory from journalist and essayist to writer/director of the Oscar-winning American Fiction represents the intent of the award: to celebrate those writers already recognized by their peers as exceptional talents and who have fulfilled the promise that their fellow scribes saw in them with their latest project.

That says a lot about the success of Shōgun, since Marks is already an Oscar-nominated scriptwriter for his work on Top Gun: Maverick. The series adapts James Clavell’s bestselling 1975 novel of the same name, previously adapted as a smash hit miniseries in 1980 starring Richard Chamberlain. The original story followed John Blackthorne (played here by Cosmo Jarvis), a fictional version of English pilot William Adams who traveled to Japan in 1600 and became embroiled in the politics and wars roiling the country. However, this new adaptation has been praised for moving the focus away from Blackthorne and giving equal weight and life to the central Japanese characters (Hiroyuki Sanada as warlord Yoshi Toranaga and Anna Sawai as translator Toda Mariko).

The addition of Kondo and Marks makes the roster of AFF 2024 awardees one of the most noteworthy in a long time, as they will join previously announced recipients Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy, who takes home the Polly Platt Award for Producing, and the man behind the revival of Battlestar Galactica, Ronald D. Moore, winner of this year’s Outstanding Television Writer Award.

The 31st annual Austin Film Festival runs Oct. 24-31. Tickets and passes at austinfilmfestival.com.
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