As part of UT's Undergraduate Writing Center's ongoing series about the writing process, they'll be hosting a screenwriting roundtable on April 4 at the Texas Union Theater from 5:15 to 6:30pm. Local funnyman Owen Egerton will moderate the panel titled From First Draft to First Run; dropping knowledge will be Austin scribes Lisa Boyd, Chris Mass, Alex Smith, and Yaphet Smith. Post-panel, Alex Smith's award-winning The Slaughter Rule (2002), starring a baby-faced Ryan Gosling, will screen. The event is free and open to the public. Just don't try to hand anybody your screenplay, okay?

Two Austin fest films (past and future) have been selected to screen at the prestigious New Directors/New Films annual showcase ("dedicated to the discovery and support of emerging artists") at New York's Lincoln Center. South by Southwest 2008 Film alum Emily Hubley (who we profiled in our SXSW Film issue) has been selected for her live action/animated hybrid The Toe Tactic (Emily also designed this year's Film fest tote bag). And shortly after Lucía Puenzo's already much-celebrated XXY, an Argentine film about a 15-year-old hermaphrodite, screens at ND/NF, it'll make its way down to Texas to premiere at this year's Cine las Americas festival, which runs from April 16-24. Be sure to check out the Chronicle's April 11 issue for our Cine las Americas preview.

Did that get your attention?

Okay, so, yes, it's free, but they're not just handing it out like candy – you gotta earn it. "They" would be the Austin Film Society. They're now accepting applications for the 2008 Texas Filmmakers' Production Fund, AFS' long-running grant program. The press release says it all:

"This year, AFS will give out at least $100,000 to emerging film and video artists in Texas, in cash grants up to $25,000, as well as Kodak film stock and in-kind services from Seattle-based Alpha Cine Labs, a new sponsor of TFPF."

AFS Director of Artist Services Bryan Poyser – a former recipient, and no slouch in the moviemaking department himself – will be hosting free workshops all over the state in coming months. To find out if he'll be coming to your town soon, check out austinfilm.org. There, you can also find the answer to most any question, as well as download the 2008 application.

The deadline is June 2, 2008.

If you thought modern cinema was just about recycling old ideas, think again: The Canners, a documentary about the lack of a consistent and coherent national policy on reusing old packaging, is looking for volunteers to discuss recycling in Texas. The film makers will be in Austin this week, and are looking for policy makers, professional recyclers, non-profit recycling programs, and people who put as much into the recycling bin as possible. "We will visit cities across the country to uncover why some states have deposit laws, while others don’t, talking with politicians and garbage anthropologists," said filmmaker Dave Rizzotto. "We will also explore such personal aspects as what motivates people to recycle through conversations with people living on the street, to cub-scout troops fundraising, to environmentalists."

If you're interested, contact Shantel Hansen at [email protected]

See below the fold for full press release.

There's a new Filmmaking Frenzy competition afoot, this one in conjunction with the upcoming film Son of Rambow, the second feature film from British ad and music video phenoms Hammer & Tongs (the pseudonyms for writer/director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith, who also directed 2005's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). In the spirit of the film – which is about two British boys in the Eighties who get their hands on some video equipment, thus letting loose both the imagination and American action-movie homage – the competition encourages you, dear filmmaker, to submit an original short (under 5 minutes) about... anything. Yup, you can't ask for more open-ended than that.

The winning short (selected by Team Hammer & Tongs) will be included on Son of Rambow's DVD release; three runner-ups will received framed posters signed by the filmmakers. Submissions are already up online for the viewing. Deadline's May 12, so get cracking.

Son of Rambow opens nationally in May.

It's 12 days till the April 4 premiere of season four of Battlestar Galactica on the Sci Fi Channel.

If you're a newbie, that's 12 days to play lightning-round catch-up – either on DVD, on the Sci Fi channel's website, or at the Alamo Drafthouse Village's free run of two episodes a night (more info here).

If you're an obsessive, that's 12 days to rewatch the cast's recent appearance on Letterman popping off the "Top Ten Reasons to Watch the New Season of Battlestar Galactica." (Find it at YouTube here.)

And if you're like me … well, that's 12 days to make friends with somebody with cable. So say we all.

The latest issue of The Believer landed in our mailbox today. While we find the magazine frequently brilliant, but also weirdly dowdy and way-too-indulgent with the word counts, this time we couldn't wait to rip through its plastic casing to get to the 2008 Film Issue. Inside are feature-length pieces (Devin McKinney's impassioned case that Henry Fonda should've played the obsessive Scottie in Hitchcock's Vertigo, Jim Shepard's dissection of the original Dutch The Vanishing that winds its way to American foreign policy) and a new feature called Creative Accounting, which breaks down the $18 million budget for an actual (but sadly anonymous) indie film, plus interviews with celebrity intelligentsia (Werner Herzog in conversation with Errol Morris looks damned promising) and the usual dips into esoterica (a Q&A with Vladimir, "one of the only known filmmakers working with View-Masters") and cheek (a photo essay of the "Top Four Nonchalant Responses to Exploding Cars").

We've only had a couple hours to greedily paw through the issue – an issue, by the way, that will continue the debate that's been playing out in the Letters to the Editor section for several issues now regarding the fluctuating, but always, er, distinct, smell of The Believer. This month's issue smells like fresh paint and my childhood speech therapist's office.

"He had many good qualities," David Simon said of the man the award he received last night was named for: newspaper titan William Randolph Hearst. He also noted Hearst "outran a bunch of 'em."

Here's a way to enjoy Uchi from the comfort of your own couch: Chef Tyson Cole will take on Iron Chef Morimoto this Sunday, March 23, at 9pm, on the Food Network.

For a less couch-bound experience of the Kitchen Stadium Showdown, check out the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar's Iron Chef Watching Party. The special simulcast will feature "behind-the-scenes" interview footage with Chef Cole -- what the Drafthouse calls "the Iron Chef Uchi 'Director's Cut.'" You can buy tickets here. All proceeds will go to the Capital Area Food Bank.

And while we're on the subject, the Drafthouse hosts another of its homegrown Iron Chef challenges on March 27. Team Alamo – chefs John Bullington, Trish Eichelberger, and Elijah Horgan – will take on the crew from Roy's, led by Chef Lawrence Kocurek. The dueling chefs will be presenting five plates each that in some way link to the night's film, Preston Sturges' masterful The Lady Eve. Diners, alongside celebrity judges (like the Chron's own Food Editor Virginia B. Wood), will vote on the winning team. Again, all proceeds benefit Capital Area Food Bank.
The movie alone is priceless – but toss in Tim League in a kimono as Chairman Kaga? Well, that's just an embarrassment of riches.