Now Streaming in Austin: AFS on Slacker at the Dobie

Welcome to Now Streaming in Austin, highlighting locally made titles to watch while self-quarantining.
So if you were at the Dobie Theatre 30 years ago, right now, there's a good chance you were in line to catch the first public screening of Slacker. Or maybe The Brave Little Toaster.

Yup, today is the anniversary of the famous run at the cinema on the south edge of the UT campus, right around where Richard Linklater shot his seminal, meandering, era-defining, lo-fi oddity, which went on to be a standard-bearer for the new American indie scene. This first run was an experiment, a Hail Mary to get attention for the film while Linklater was trying to get a distribution deal, and boy did it work.

If you haven't read it already, check out our retelling of that historic run from the audience's point of view, but you may want to hear what Linklater himself - as well as Dobie owner/manager Scott Dinger and expert insight from former Chronicle critic Alison Macor, author of Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids: 30 Years of Filmmaking in Austin, Texas - in this fascinating little documentary by the Austin Film Society.

And if you want to hear more from the director himself, read our 1991 interview - from the end of the Slacker promotional tour - when Linklater was grilled by none other than Linklater himself.

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"1990 - The Year Richard Linklater's Slacker Broke"

• Austin Film Society (Link)