AFF Announces a Few More Names for the Marquee

Linda Cardellini at the Freaks and Geeks reunion in 2011 (Photo via Pop Culture Geek/Creative Commons)

With the Austin Film Festival just two weeks away, it's clear the team has saved some of the best news for last.

We already thought we'd peaked: The 70-odd features in the festival's 20th anniversary lineup are a solid slate top to bottom, and the conference slate includes such heavyweights as Vince Gilligan, Jenji Kohan, and Callie Khouri.

But in a press release this morning, AFF dropped a few more big, juicy news bites:

• Susan Sarandon joins the previously announced awardees as this year's honoree for the Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking – Actor award. The only other previous recipient of that award was Johnny Depp in 2011.

• Fans of Gilligan and Rian Johnson's previous collaborations will be pleased to learn the duo are together again for the former's unproduced feature 2 Face, which Johnson is slated to direct. AFF will host a reading of the feature on Oct. 27, including cast members Will Ferrell, Linda Cardellini, and Thomas Haden Church.

• AFF's opening and closing night films were also announced: On Oct. 24, audiences get the one-two punch of Jonathan Sobel's The Art of the Steal, starring Kurt Russell, Matt Dillon, and Jay Baruchel, and Coffee, Kill Boss, which won the screenplay competition at AFF in 2011. Then, for the closing festivities, AFF gets into the Halloween spirit with All Cheerleaders Die.

To keep up with all the latest AFF news as it's announced, follow along at austinchronicle.com/austin-film-festival.