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OWA’s DAN O’BANNON AWARD offers $1,500 Grant to Texas SciFi Filmmakers |
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Other Worlds Austin SciFi Film Festival is excited to announce that it will award a $1,500 grant for the production or post-production of a short film to an emerging Texas filmmaker who exhibits an equal passion for Science Fiction.
Dan O’Bannon is best known as the creative force and screenwriter behind ALIEN, but his work on TOTAL RECALL, SCREAMERS, and HEAVY METAL further cemented his place in the SciFi pantheon. He even did special effects on the original STAR WARS. His first film, the John Carpenter SciFi cult classic DARK STAR, found him taking on the roles of writer, special effects, editor, production design and actor.
“In naming the grant after O’Bannon,” says Bears Fonté, OWA Founder and Artistic Director, “we can think of no better artist that better exemplifies the drive and singular determination it takes to make a SciFi film, and that’s what this award is for, to help someone with that drive.
O’Bannon was born in Missouri, where he made his first SciFi film, THE ATTACK OF THE 50-FT CHICKEN. At USC he met John Carpenter and the two colloborated on a short, then a feature about a space clean up crew called DARK STAR. After a few other SciFi gigs, he ended up writing ALIEN, one of the most important and influential SciFi films of all time.
Diana O’Bannon, Dan’s widow, thinks Dan would enjoy that OWA’s other award is named for Marry Shelley, saying “I will never forget Dan and I seeing her screen credit, as ‘Mrs. Percy B. Shelley’ while watching the old Frankenstein film! I'm glad, as Dan would be, that you are getting it right about writers, and I'm certain he would be thrilled to be included in your festival.” The O’Bannon Company is co-sponsoring the award with Other Worlds Austin.
Free to enter, the Other Worlds Austin Dan O'Bannon Filmmaker Award will be gifted to a filmmaker whose proposed short film follows our mission statement’s explanation of a phenomenal SciFi film: a great story that isn’t afraid to push the boundaries of the audience, thrilling them both visually and intellectually.
“It is our wish to be able to help bring more quality SciFi into the world,” says Fonté, “by contributing to an artist who shows promise, skill, and creativity, as well as to encourage the exciting Texas film scene. Film festivals have always been great curators of content. With this grant, we can help give back to the filmmaking community that has given us so much joy with their artistry.”
The deadline for all applications is September 30, 2016. The grant |
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Badges
On Sale NOW! From $45 December 1-4 @Flix Brewhouse Guaranteed Seat for Every Screening Limited Quantities Available
SciFi Film Submissions
Features/Shorts August 1st - Sept 15th $50/$40 Sept 16th - Sept 30th $60/$50
Late Deadline - August 31st Shorts $45 Teleplays $65 Features $70
SciFi Screenings
DIRECTORS COMMENTARY: TERROR OF FRANKENSTEIN (TEXAS Premiere) Flix Brewhouse, 9pm, Aug 25th ($10)
Deadline - September 30th $1500 Grant to Texas Filmmakers Free to Enter
The Team
Bears Fonté Founder and Artistic Director Don Elfant Director of Marketing and Development Jordan Brown Associate Artistic Director Debbie Cerda Programmer and Hospitality Director Courtney Hazlett Programmer and Director of Operations Reid Lansford Programmer and Registration Director Mark Martinez Programmer and Social Media Director Tessa Morrison Programmer and Outreach Director Dan Repp Senior Programmer and Events Director Margaux Ryndak Sponsorship Director Michael Thielvoldt Programmer and Tour Director |
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winner will be announced in the fall with OWA’s film lineup and posted on our website at that time. An independent panel of esteemed professionals from the Austin film community will convene to review applications: aGLIFF program director Jim Brunzell, Cine Las Americas director Jean Anne Lauer, SFX artist Meredith Johns, ZERO CHARISMA director Andrew Matthews, SLASH star Tishuan Scott, AMFM editor/publisher Christine Thompson, and Ain't It Cool News' Mike Saulters.
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We have LIFT-OFF: OWA 2016 Badges on SALE!!!
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Climb aboard our intergalactic pyramid headed for SciFi enlightenment. Badges for the 3rd Annual Other Worlds Austin SciFi Film Festival are on sale now. Every badge is a guaranteed seat for each screening slot December 2-4, and start at just $45. For just $5 more, you can get priority access to the new Under Worlds Austin Horror Sidebar (open to all). There will be eleven screening slots, so that less than $5 per film plus the Pre-Apocalyptic Happy Hour and the Closing Night Party.
This year we’ve expanded the festival to a fourth day, adding a Gala First Night on December 1st. The Gala will include a kick-off pre-party, a First Night Screening, and an Opening Night Party. These badges start at $70 and include the popular 2016: A Brunch Odyssey party on the Saturday morning of the festival.
This year the entire festival will be at Flix Brewhouse, Flix is America’s Cinema Brewery® – the only first run movie theater in the world to incorporate a fully functioning microbrewery. By combining this great concept with Other Worlds Austin, we can deliver to each theater seat three of America’s great loves – craft beer, great food, and the best independent SciFi films! All of Flix’s stadium seating “dining rooms” are outfitted with the latest high-definition digital cinema projection and sound technologies, wall-to-wall curved screens, cushy high back chairs, and a revolutionary Easy Glider moveable table top. Flix brews nine of its own beers and offers 38 other draft beers for guests to enjoy.
If you’ve been to our Orbiter Year Round Screening Series you already know how fantastic Flix is, and visiting filmmakers have been universal in praising the sound and picture quality in the theaters.
Other Worlds Austin is one of the premier SciFi film festivals in the USA, was selected 'Best of Austin' by the Austin Chronicle, and labelled 'Best Visions of the Future.' With a team of programmers who love genre films, write genre films, or make genre films of their own, we are in this for one reason only, to put on a great festival. Here in the Geek Capital of the World, we are building a network of SciFi fans and filmmakers, leading a loyal community, and launching SciFi films into the wider world.
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Last year’s festival included Mary Shelly Award Winner EMBERS, which went on to be the Closing Night Film at Slamdance, Toronto International FIlm Festival standout NO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT, the US Premiere of German thriller BOY 7, the US Premiere of French WWII-set time-travel head scratcher HOUSE OF TIME, a standing room only screening of Austin-based JACKRABBIT, the steampunk documentary VINTAGE TOMORROWS, and several others. The 2014 festival presented the World Premieres of APT 3D, THE SUN DEVIL AND THE PRINCESS, the US Premiere of Hungarian thriller AURA, Dutch drama CAPSULE, and the cloning closing night hit THE RECONSTRUCTION OF WILLIAM ZERO, as well as our Audience Award winner TIME LAPSE.
Your seat will be guaranteed as long as you arrive at the theater at least 15 minutes before the screening time. At 15 minutes, tickets will go on sale to the general public. Late arriving badgeholders will have to go to the back of the general admission line.
Don’t delay. Quantities are limited. Select from FOUR BADGE OPTIONS, all of which include a guaranteed seat for each screening, December 2-4, 2016. Supernova and Super Massive Black Hole Badges include the First Night Gala Screening and Parties on Thursday, December 1st, as well as the Saturday Morning, 2016: A Brunch Odyssey party. Black Hole and Super Massive Black Hole Badges include priority access to the Under Worlds Austin Sidebar. After our presale in February to last year’s attendees, there are less than 40 badges left with access to the Gala.
Order today because quantities are limited and prices go up $10 on Oct. 1st and Nov. 1st.
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THE COMMENTARY’S THE THING: the OWA Terror of Frankenstein Screening
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by BEARS FONTE — August 25th, OWA presents the Texas Premiere of DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY: TERROR OF FRANKENSTEIN at 9M at Flix Brewhouse (tickets). I remember when DVD’s were a new thing, and the Director’s Commentary was what sold me. I converted all my old VHS tapes to the new format to hear words of wisdom from the creators of the film. It was a film class for those of us who weren’t going to spend ridiculous sums on grad school (hint: go to theater school, they pay YOU). I remember “Blackhawk Down” had three different commentary tracks. And of course “The Lord of the Rings” films had so much material on the deluxe versions you wondered if you would finish before the next year’s film made it out. Every once in a while you would stumble upon a commentary where the people didn’t really seem to be happy to be in the room together, or spent the whole time talking around an issue or actor leaving the listener to connect the dots for themselves. When I recorded the Director’s Commentary for my own feature (iCrime, buy it used!) with the lead actress and the only producer I still talked to at the time, it was hard to keep my own suppressed feeling of bitterness in check as we rambled on watching a film we had shot two years ago, full of hopes and dreams.
Which leads me to one of the smartest films I’ve seen in a long time, DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY: THE TERROR OF FRANKENSTEIN, which makes its Texas Premiere as part of the OWA Orbiter Year Round Screening Series this month. The idea behind the film is that you are watching it with commentary turned on (it even opens with
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someone clicking through menus, looking at the ‘photo gallery,’ etc.) “The Terror of Frankenstein” is a very real movie. In fact, it’s arguably the best ever made of Mary Shelly’s book (and also probably the most true to the source material). However, the commentary that the audience is treated to for this screening is entirely fabricated. Director Tim Kirk and his co-writer Jay Kirk, along with Producer Rodney Ascher (Room 237, The Nightmare), have cast two voice actors to play the director and screenwriter of The Terror of Frankenstein, and these ‘filmmakers’ share on-set anecdotes as well as discuss the film’s legacy.
I cannot begin to explain how brilliant this set up is, because as the two discuss the film’s notoriety it becomes very clear that most people’s interest in the film stems not from what’s on screen, but from a series of gruesome murders and a lengthy public trial of one of the cast members. Bits of the story leak out as they watch the film together, as well as old grudges and hints of blame. But it all starts very subtly, which is why it works so well. The audience is left to try to piece together what happened as they are asked to follow the placement and heaviness of a certain piece of prop luggage, all the while the director praising himself for the performances he got.
As the film develops, it becomes suggested that possibly the production team should have been a little more implicated in the tragic trajectory for their questionable ‘methods’ including leaving one actor in the wilderness for weeks at a time. Finally, the lead actor shows up to join in the commentary and it all unravels. Leon Vitali, who played Victor Frankenstein in the actual Terror of Frankenstein, lends his voice here as the actual Leon Vitali, who somehow survived the most dangerous set in history. The fact that the Director’s Commentary team actually got the Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut actor to play along is a stroke of absolute brilliance and he adds a confusing air of sincerity that sends the meta-fiction into a bizarre brain melting spiral.
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MONSTERVISIONS OF MY YOUTH
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By Reid Lansford — You may not realize it if you came across it today, but TNT and USA used to be amazing cable channels. Before the corporate mergers, before the 24/7 LAW AND ORDER marathons, before we “knew” drama, each one was just looking for something to fill late nights.
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DARKNESS FALLS, PARANOIA RISES |
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By Taylor Covington — Childhood can be a wonderful time. It can also be the critical point in life where horrific fear becomes ingrained, which later evolves into adult anxieties. I am of course referring to my excellent dental care, and the extreme care with which I attend my teeth—all because I watched the 2003 film DARKNESS FALLS at far too young an age.
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HOW VINCENT PRICE TAUGHT ME TO SCREAM
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By Courtney Hazlett — I clutched my pillow the entire film. The aftermath was that I had multiple nightmares and was jittery during our class trip to Ripley’s Believe it or Not. However, over time, I slowly reminded myself that it was just a movie and began to enjoy that horror film for what it is: an experience.
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3rd Annual OTHER WORLDS AUSTIN SciFi Film Festival —————------—December 1-4, 2016---------------- |
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*|IF:REWARDS|* *|REWARDS|* *|END:IF|*
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